[Peetwo]

The Last Minute Hitch: 12 August 2022

12 August 2022

– Steve Hitchen

If you're out there looking for a good second-hand GA aeroplane at the moment you will have to be on the ball to get what you want; the market is skyrocketing in terms of price and there are buyers jockeying to get into the box seat. Aircraft like Archers and Cessna 172s in reasonable nick with good hours on them are in demand and they don't stay on the market very long at all. The current situation is an unintended consequence of problems sourcing new aircraft. Most of the GA manufacturers now are quoting up to two years to deliver new, meaning flying schools and charter operators are turning to the second-hand market as a source of fleet replacements. And with Lycoming rumoured to be around 15,000 engines in arrears world-wide, even a good aircraft with a time-expired engine needs to be mothballed and a used machine secured to keep the company running. Compounding this is the fact that Australia is running out of good condition low-hour aircraft that fit into the sweet spot in terms of utility and economy. Aeroplanes that would traditionally sell for around $60-70,000 are now fetching $100-120,000 easily. It has been a long time since a seller's market like this has existed, and it shows no sign of cooling down any time soon.

"...defending common interests are what associations were formed to do..."

I'd pay money to score a seat at the upcoming aviation skills round table with Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Catherine King. I have been told about 20 or so people have been invited, which in aviation means at least 22 different opinions will come to the party ... normally. What is bringing everyone together at this time is a new awakening from the Federal Government that a healthy aviation industry relies heavily on maintenance engineers, and all sectors of aviation agree that here just aren't enough of them to go around and the pipeline is clogged. Where things could get entertaining on 23 August is a difference of opinion over priorities. There will be conflicting interests jostling for prime spots in the ear of the minister, fired by counter-advocacy from several quarters. Flight training organisations would very much like the airlines to stop poaching highly-qualified instructors, and airlines would dearly like to keep doing that. There are other points of heated discussion that I won't go into here. That's to be expected; defending common interests are what associations were formed to do. King's challenge is going to be finding an all-of-industry solution that is workable and easy to implement. My fear is that all of this will disappear into a huge melting pot of stuff that will eventually solidify into the new Aviation White Paper (more below on that). That would be a disaster; white papers take time and time is the only thing the industry is shorter of than engineers.

It is true the ALP government has inherited a pile of coal from which they are expected to make diamonds. The national debt is in the trillions, supply chains are rusty and fractured and almost every employment sector is saying the government must do more. The Federal Government has to make a little bit of cash go a long way. It is therefore very surprising that it is determined to spend a couple of million or so on a new Aviation White Paper when they already have at their fingertips all the information a white paper will ever give them. But most of that information is contained in documents that carry a Coalition masthead, so therefore needs to be discarded. Another compelling reason is that a new white paper was an election promise, albeit a promise that the industry didn't want and didn't ask for. The smartest, cheapest and most efficient thing the ALP could now do is implement the plans that the aviation sector and the Coalition sweated over to create, and shelve the white paper idea completely. I am guilty of pie-in-the-sky thinking here, because I have ignored political imperative. This is the ever-present undertow that influences policy from the shadows of Canberra. If you want to see the damage political imperative can do, just read the Aviation White Paper produced by the last ALP government, then steel yourself for what's coming ahead.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

Comment in reply from Sandy (yet to be published -   ):

Editor Hitch says “almost every employment sector is saying the government must do more.”

I would say all the government has to do is less;  and that means it must remove bureaucratic road blocks and allow free enterprise to get on with providing the real goods and aviation services that Australians value, voting with our dollars is the essence of a growing and prosperous society. 

This means making decisions against the immediate interests of CASA and the Public Sector (what we used to call Service). Moving to a White Paper for aviation simply leaves us in the Black Hole.  

Successive governments haven’t had the courage to admit that the independent regulator model, which is  outside Ministerial control, is wrong and cannot work. In 1988 Labor Minster Gareth Evans shoved aviation out of his Department in defiance of the Westminster principle of Ministerial responsibility.  He created what was laughingly called a ‘Government Business Enterprise,’ a state sponsored monopoly corporate, and no government has had the fortitude to tackle the problem since, no plans and no actions unless interminable inquiries and ‘papers,’ at huge expense, count as action. 

The last Minister Barnaby Joyce made a tentative gesture by creating a Statement of Expectations that hinted about some real reforms but there’s nothing in legislation that gives force to ‘Expectations.’

Certainly the value of secondhand aircraft is increasing but not because General Aviation is growing but because, as Hitch points out, lack of new aircraft and also because of the accelerating cost of same, exacerbated by our low dollar value. Too bad Australia, your GA industry is, given my watching from a life and career in GA from 1966, about 1/4 the size of it’s potential, what should have been, an iconic and far more useful part of National life. 

Well said that man! -   

Sandy (only a month ago via email) provided the solution to the current political and bureaucratic impasse on the woes of the aviation industry: 

Time for a private member’s Bill to have CASA disbanded and its functions carried out in a Department of Government with a Minister in charge. This is the proven Westminster system which has the responsibility for governance firmly with our elected representatives, this being the foundation of democracy.

General Aviation (GA) will continue to languish until the current system is replaced. The independent Commonwealth corporate CASA (an entity that can be sued) is a failed experimental form of governance, How else would one account for the loss of hundreds of flying schools, charter operators and maintenance businesses? In addition, the almost universal dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, of CASA throughout General Aviation.

We should ask the Senators and House Representatives would you give over the Department of Defence to an unelected corporation like CASA?

The General Aviation (GA) sector cannot grow and strengthen in the National interest until our representatives in Parliament force change.

Senator McDonald initiated the current drawn out two and a half years RRAT inquiry into GA which has produced only interim findings so far.

The ASRR inquiry (Forsyth) of 2014 produced some 35 government accepted recommendations, MPs should demand action on those. The current RRAT Senate inquiry is a rehash of the Forsyth Report. It has 74 submissions only, nearly all from the same cohort that contributed to the 269 ASRR Forsyth submissions and with all the same problems.

Eight years after Forsyth all we have is a worsening situation with CASA’s complexities and relentless piling on of unnecessary and expensive procedures. These problems cannot be solved properly within the present structure which is not fit for purpose.

With respect, and acknowledging the efforts of individuals like Senator McDonald, the problem is that no previous government has made the necessary decisions that only Parliament can deliver.

Those of us that have lived the great boom of GA, when one was hard pressed to find a parking spot at Moorabbin, and the skies were constantly plied with GA aircraft, know only too well the destruction that’s occurred in GA. For those that don’t have that experience we have the BITRE statistics that clearly show the decline of GA, and if plotted against population growth would look much worse.

We’ve lost hundreds of flying schools and charter operators before and during Senator McDonald’s RRAT hearings. One deleterious outcome has been the dearth of home grown airline pilots. As we’ve been predicting for many years, our airlines have now to look overseas for flight crew. Foreign pilots have been recruited under 457 visas. General Aviation is the bedrock for training and we used to supply plenty of Aussie pilots of the highest quality and with the best practical experience from flying in Australia.

Some exemplary reforms by Government are desperately needed now, take the rules out of the criminal code, should be misdemeanours, remove the expensive ID card, the ‘ASIC,’ recommend by Forsyth, and prevent the further alienation of irreplaceable airport land on Commonwealth airports which is being lost to property developers. CASA should and could quickly reform Private Pilot medical certification in accordance with the AOPA plan, allow independent instructors outside Part 141/142 and reform the aircraft maintenance regime.

All of this goes not only to our prosperity, but also to our security and strength as a Nation where the mobility of aviation (and airports are crucial infrastructure) is an obvious necessity in a land mass with low population such as ours.

MTF....P2