3 May

“Aviation is in our DNA – the double helix safety and growth”
 
 
Conference is less than six weeks away now.  The trades hall is 80% full and after some restructuring of plans, due to the recent renovations at the Dunedin Town Hall. We can now provide an assurance that you’ll absolutely get everything you wish for and of course more.  Don’t be concerned about the comments about wearing a kilt – we know many of our supporters will but we also know some of you prefer other attire – all are welcome !!!
 
This week has seen the release of a number of major reports into HSE click here and here and the TAIC inquiry into the Easy Rider. Angela Beazer from AMC legal services will be presenting on Wednesday at conference about the responsibilities of Directors and the implications for the surviving Directors, particularly wives and partners, when there are fatal accidents.
 
We’re also today announcing a careers expo to be held on Friday 20 June in conjunction with the conference.  RNZAF and Sir George Seymour College and Travel Careers & Training are already committed and we’re in discussions with Service IQ, our ATTTO, who gave us a preliminary enthusiastic response.  If you’d like to participate please send us an email. The expo is not limited to South Island participants but numbers are limited to around 10 participants.  We’d like a good diversity of skills to showcase. 
 
An exciting development is that you can now purchase and pay for your conference and training programmes on line. We’ve not had a shopping cart facility on our web page until very recently but it’s there now and will speed up processing and remove the hassle.
 
Speaking of which we have an ask – one of our lap tops is terminal, after 10 years of use and if there’s a kind sponsor out there who can provide a new one we’d much appreciate the donation.  Contact the office and we’ll provide acknowledgement for your generosity.
 
Just to prove that it’s not all about work we’d like to give The Helicopter Line a big vote of support for sponsoring the Routeburn Classic in which Sarah, our front line customer accountant, participated (click here, here, here, here, here, here). We must also mention Southern Lakes Helicopter Ops manager Lloyd Matheson, although not quite up to the competitive challenge, was there and as said Sarah “did us proud”. 
 
SAFETY BRIEFING
 
Notebooks and lap top update – full marks to the responsiveness of CAA and Aviation Security - as of May 01 the following instruction was issued click here. No more confusion; well at least for us kiwi frequent flyers, but many of our foreign guests still take shoes, belts and scarves off when going through security. I guess this is a hard one to communicate as “the boots” still has not got use to the “glasses off” when doing Iris scanning for entry into the US.
 
CAA charges – confirmation this week that the next review of CAA charges is underway, however, this appears to be a more principled approach looking at what costs should be covered by government, what costs users should pay and what is “common” i.e. paid for by levies. We’re very supportive of this review but make the point that this should not hold up or delay the review into medical charges.  We understand CAA hold a similar view, but we just can’t see any progress to date on the medical issues.  This is disappointing as we know it is really starting to hurt many in industry.
 
Review of the Civil Aviation Act 1990 – lead by the MOT this review will be the first substantive review of the Act since its inception.  Any changes are likely to be at least three years away but at least change is a foot. A challenge is the very extensive powers of the Director provided for in the present legislation.  We know these powers are to a degree necessary to protect the integrity of the system, but they do raise concerns when the only countervailing power is that of the District Court. Its not that “the boots” would comment on the quality of District Court decisions – that is far too scary, but an observation that three years getting to Court and then 6-9 months before a decision is made does not read well for “aviation safety”.
 
Compare this to the Australian system of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal – if we could have some half way house with perhaps the Board of CAA having a much greater role we feel this would go some way to alleviating concerns. Anyway, the first “run through” of what officials are thinking on this matter will be at conference.  Another good reason to be there and start to have your say.
 
                         
HSE taskforce report – this is probably the most significant review we have had of HSE in this country since the inception of the Act. There is one recommendation, number 6, which particularly impacts on aviation. Our view is that there is finally an appreciation that having two conflicting and overlapping pieces of legislation does little to actually improve safety outcomes in our sector.  We see the health of our employees as an integral piece of our safety management system, and having two potentially parallel (ie HSE and the new Aviation SMS) but different systems as being fraught with difficulties.
 
What we would like to see happen is that CAA becomes the competent regulating authority for all safety activities including the health of employees in the workforce.  We understand that the UK essentially operates in this way through service level agreements.
 
While the delivery of enhanced safety performance results for the sector is not assured, we think the taskforce’s recommendations are in the right direction.  Of course the problem of two tests of safety, different definitions of accidents and categorisation of accidents remains.  We think it will be up to the agencies to resolve these conflicts, as opposed to industry having to work their way through this nonsense.
 
As we have said on a number of occasions, there is an interesting trend for agencies to prosecute under both the HSE Act and the specific sector legislation.  In the instance of the Easy Rider, these prosecutions have been filed by the Maritime Safety Authority against the sole Director of the company – the skipper’s wife. 
 
As said earlier, Angela Beazer will be presenting on this issue at conference. It’s a serious one which may cause you to have a think about the structure of your businesses.      
 
ADSB – a further meeting of the Airways led Industry taskforce was held this week.  We’re inviting Airways to present a comprehensive update at conference and we’ll circulate the notes to you when they are available.  For the GA industry, this could be very challenging scenario so we would urge you to be fully briefed on the issue.  Our representatives have expressed a view, and there is clearly some diversity of view as to who the beneficiaries are and who should or should not pay.    
 
Who is paying for the 2degrees investigation – this is a question we will be posing to the CAA.  Under the user pays system where levies on the fare paying passenger pay for all safety investigations and any regulatory actions by CAA, the question arises as to why the CAA is investigating an accident, albeit very tragic, which involved a US registered aircraft on a private flight.  We are aware that New Zealand has bilateral agreements with the US and a number of other countries in respect of such matters, but the US system is not user pays, whereas ours is. We also understand that other New Zealand government agencies have contributed to the investigation so that CAA’s actual exposure may be very small. An answer from CAA to the question will increase transparency and our understanding of how the system operates.  We do understand that sometimes CAA has an obligation to investigate, which may not be clearly understood by the industry.     
 
Competitiveness of New Zealand’s aviation training industry – although this is written in the context of Flight training we would welcome your input on any other matters you would like to raise click here. The Helicopter training sector has stated its support for retaining some aspects we are suggesting be removed. Your feed back would be appreciated. NZHA will also discuss the issue when it meets on Wednesday next week.
 
The UK have it right click here – in recent years we have seen a lot of value destruction in our flight training industry and we don’t mean liquidation of business but destruction of intellectual capital built up through the substantial investment made through the ability to access government funding and student loans. The UK has recognised that training has to be done differently in the sector – we recognized this 10 years ago but unfortunately have back peddled through various policy settings and destroyed IP in the pilot training sector over the last few years.            
 
GROWTH BRIEFING
 
Alignment – we’re getting some customer feed back that you can now really see the alignment between NZTE and ourselves with the strap line “Aviation is in our DNA” appearing on a lot of marketing collateral.   We’re using this extensively and as advised last week we’re working with Australian Business Review to promote New Zealand Industry.  Here’s what we’ve written click here and here    
 
Go Global – if you’re thinking about getting into exporting or are already there here’s a New Zealand conference to go to click here. We understand well over 200 people have already registered with a good number from the services sector.             
 

Aviation is in our DNA Red boots

Nominations called for – AIA awards.  Each year the AIA makes two awards: to an individual in recognition of their long service to the industry; and to a company for their outstanding contribution.  If you know anyone or company who might meet these requirements please feel free to nominate by emailing admin1@aia.org.nz
 
CAA Directors Awards – note these are also open. Go to CAA webpage.

Trade Stands read more

Delegates read more

Sponsorship read more
 

Expressions of Interest – Executive Leadership programme, RNZAF Base Woodbourne 17-19 May  click here  
 

 

Emirates, Etihad, Air Arabia, flydubai hiring click here

NZTE Aviation update click here

Aviation: Business of business travel booming in China, India and other emerging countries click here

The TSA Says No to Pocketknives on Airplanes After All click here

UK merges safety, airspace policy functions click here

FAA proposes eliminating airport weather observers click here

The Exporter click here
 

Hew flight paths Auckland  upset some residence read more

Beef and Lamb read more

---

AIA members deals