Gathering clouds

These towns enjoyed RPT services for many years and lost them as the Navajos and Chieftains became uneconomical. Aviation is part of the essential economic and social development of regional Australia and many within regional aviation are exercising their minds as to how services can be re-established, albeit at somewhat reduced levels from the 267 routes that existed in 1984.

Once again pilot and engineer shortages are emerging. This is not helped by the draconian rules around accessing VET Fee Help for student pilots. The rules are skewing the market away from the industry based flight schools.

These are the schools often closely aligned with carriers and able to provide quick entry into a professional airline environment. The barriers to entry for Vet Fee Help have meant many students have either been forced to become self-funding or have walked away from the prohibitive training costs. A recent brief trip to New Zealand illustrated how more enlightened training policies have encouraged a burgeoning pilot training sector. Our Tasman neighbours can’t keep up with student demand and yet we are seeing regular closures of our professional pilot training schools.

It is also essential that any changes to aviation security should be risk-based backed up by a rigorous security assessment and that increased security costs are not automatically passed on to airports and operators. While there is some government support for new security equipment to cover full screening what about the flow-on infrastructure, maintenance, staffing and training costs? These policies are enacted by government but regional carriers are expected to pick up a large slice of the bill.

A larger regional carrier has quantified the increased costs from July 1 2012 as $20-$50 per ticket on typical routes. This could mean that some routes eventually become unsustainable which is tragedy for a country that needs more regional air routes, not less.

If the carbon tax is applied to fuel it will have serious consequences for regional operators. All operators fly as efficiently and safely as possible and cannot reduce their fuel burn any further. In addition there are simply no new pressurised RPT aircraft under 50 seats being built.

Given that aviation contributes around 1% to Australia’s greenhouse emissions, is already fuel efficient and cannot become more efficient in the foreseeable future, a carbon tax on fuel is just a tax that will not change regional aviation’s behaviour at all except to add cost and put regional routes at risk of closure. This is no way to encourage regional development and grow our regional economies.

Governments must get off the back of regional aviation if the sector is to realise its potential. Make no mistake, there could be great gains for Australia if regional aviation was encouraged to flourish but the dead weight of government policies and charges must be lifted.

Grab wherever you record your important dates and mark in 7-9 September 2011and come along to the RAAA Annual Convention at the Hyatt, Coolum QLD. The speaker list is already over-subscribed and an excellent range of exhibitors will be attending. Check the RAAA web-site for all the details.