A fair go for our members

Our AOC holder members provide rural and remote Australians with critically important access to the markets, services and facilities available in or through the major cities.

In doing so they carry two million passengers and 23,000 tonnes of freight annually, and jointly employ 2500 staff.

Annual turnover of those AOC holder members is around $700m. It is clear that our members, both operators and associates (without whom the industry would not exist), thus represent a critical component of the national infrastructure on which rural and remote Australians depend for their social and economic well-being.

The industry has been ‘doing it tough’ since the events of 2001, but the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics has reported recent growth in regional air service passenger numbers. While it certainly appears to be true that passenger numbers are increasing on the major east coast regional routes and the routes to and from the major resource centres in Western Australia and Queensland, it is not necessarily the case that regional aviation as a whole is growing, since the data include increasing high capacity jet traffic on what are still, technically, regional routes.

At the rural and remote level, a combination of shrinking populations, economic downturn as a result of the drought, and constantly rising costs, particularly of regulatory and security compliance, has continued the trend of steadily reducing air services.

Based on our observations, the key messages in relation to regional aviation are as follows: • the number of regional airlines (counting Eastern and Sunstate but excluding Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar) has dropped from 45 in 1998 to 25 today, and • the number of communities served has dropped from 251 in 1986 to 145 today.

The RAAA’s mission is to promote and maintain the viability of regional aviation (not just regional airlines).

Our slogan is “serving regional aviation, and through it the people and businesses of regional Australia”. While a lot of our effort is directed internally in education and mentoring of our members, we see it as an important part of our role to lobby government to develop more effective policies. These are needed to ensure the continuation of a viable regional aviation industry as a critical component of the national infrastructure. We act responsibly and professionally, and we are not afraid to give credit where credit is due, or to draw attention to issues that need resolution.

The tyranny of distance and a harsh climate combine to make regional Australia heavily dependent on air services of various kinds. As a nation, unless we want to see regional Australians sink to a lesser standard of citizenship than those in the major towns and cities, there are some major issues to be addressed, including: • declining rural populations, • increasing regulatory and security compliance costs, • technical staff shortages, • ageing aircraft, and • deteriorating rural airports.

Unless we can find solutions to these issues, we must expect to see a continuation of the current trends in regional aviation. We must expect that there will be fewer but larger airlines, as the smaller ones are either acquired by the larger companies or fall by the wayside. We must expect to see the smaller and older aircraft gradually retired as they reach the end of their economic lives, leaving the smaller communities without scheduled air services, and the larger aircraft to service fewer but more profitable routes.

What do we want as an Association? We do not want hand outs. What we want is a fair go for our members and for the communities who depend on us for their social and economic well-being.

Probably the two most urgent issues for government action are either a continuation of the current En Route Charges Subsidy Scheme or the abolition of En Route Charges for regional aircraft which draw limited tangible benefit from the limited services provided en route in regional Australia, and the provision of a scheme for funding the necessary maintenance of critical regional airports where the local communities can not afford to do so themselves.

The Regional Aviation Association of Australia is fiercely proud of its members and the largely unsung work that they do, ensuring that regional Australians have access to some of the services and markets that most of us take for granted. We look forward to working with government and those communities to help ensure the continuing viability of regional aviation services despite the sometimes daunting issues that we jointly face. A happy new year to all. o Australian Aviation is proud to be the official supporting journal of the Regional Aviation Association of Australia. The views in this column are those of the RAAA, and not necessarily Australian Aviation’s.