A better year ahead?

Pilot supply seems generally balanced with demand but the ageing engineer workforce will require scrutiny and urgent action. This latter point is particularly of concern in regional areas where younger LAMEs are becoming increasingly scarce and avionics engineers remain an endangered species.

Regional operators will need to watch carefully rising airport costs. The major airports are effective monopolies and require robust government oversight and industry vigilance. The larger regional airports have been willing students of the capital city airports and their pricing behaviour must be monitored.

It is pleasing that the new leadership team at the Office of Transport Security (OTS) is taking a more risk based approach to aviation security. As OTS itself has noted, increasing aviation security is often done with alacrity but reducing costly security measures is very different,Regionsusually mired in politics and glacial in its progress. A clear example is the current need for everyone airside at a regional RPT port to have an ASIC. This means that a private operator at the other end of the airfield must have a current ASIC at all times even though the operator may never go near the terminal area.

In addition the 20-tonne trigger for checked backed screening requires urgent review. The rush to reduce the trigger from 30 tonnes to 20 was hasty and based on problematic technical advice. Not only did the new limit pass through a major regional airframe grouping, advantaging some but not others, the security case for the reduction was never fully explained to the industry, and yet industry continues to bear the cost.

CASA has had a forgettable year but with a refreshed board, a new CEO and a soon to be penned letter of direction from Deputy Prime Minister Truss, it is hoped that CASA will turn the corner in 2015. The right of the regulator to do a professional job is unquestioned. Why the relationship with industry needed to become so compromised is still a mystery, but hopefully one from which all will quickly move on.

The ATSB took a hit in 2014 with the release of the independent Canadian report into the earlier Pel-Air investigation. The report itself is not fatal to the ATSB’s reputation but does point to the need to have robust technical expertise within and available to

The 20-tonne trigger for checked backed screening requires urgent review

the bureau’s senior management.

Economically, regional aviation is probably in for a tough couple of years mirroring the resources industry slow-down. However, the successful regional operators are highly experienced and will cut their cloth accordingly. They choose their airframes, engines and avionics very carefully with a view to remaining sustainable during the normal market fluctuations.

Regional aviation has been serving Australian towns since the 1920s and is adept at making the necessary economic adjustments. As the industry approaches the centenary of commercial aviation in the bush the challenges remain surprisingly similar. The industry is focused on providing safe air travel and on-time freight performance to all Australians.

As always, we need to guard against forms of government intervention that stifle industry growth and over-play the safety card.