[Peetwo]

GAAG submits flight plan to DPM McNobody -

Not sure what to make of it yet but there was some interesting snippets in today's Aviation section of the Oz -

Question is could this be an aviation reform renaissance or just another series of gabfests followed by a half a decade long bureaucratic strategy of divide & conquer, spin'n'bulldust and obfuscation?

Via the Oz:

Plan to keep troubled aviation sector in air amid pilot shortage

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has welcomed the ‘flight plan’.

• The Australian
  
  
• 12:00AM June 1, 2018
  
  
• ANNABEL HEPWORTH
  
  Aviation Editor
  Sydney
  @HepworthAnnabel
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A high-powered advisory group to the Turnbull government is advancing plans to ensure there are enough pilots and aviation engineers “to keep Australians flying”.

The Australian can reveal Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has been given a plan that outlines three priorities for the troubled general aviation sector, which has been complaining of crippling costs and red tape.

The plan was produced by the government’s General Aviation Advisory Group, chaired by Royal Flying Doctor Service chief executive Martin Laverty, and outlines a work plan for the group.

Mr Laverty said the plan “addresses critical issues of regulatory burden and ensuring sufficient workforce to keep Australians flying”.

Amid a pilot shortage that is a global phenomenon, the document identifies “workforce development” for the general aviation industry as a priority.

It also says a priority should be ensuring air safety regulation supports the general aviation sector through “clear, consistently applied and proportionally responsive administration”.

The other priority is for a long-term “strategic perspective” for general aviation, which provides links to areas not serviced by ­airlines but has been shrinking since 2010.

Writing in The Australian today, Mr Laverty says even the RFDS has struggled with the issue of pilot and engineer shortages.

“A solution is best advanced from within industry itself by encouraging young people into the profession,” Mr Laverty writes.

“Expanded industry training capacity will fulfil national needs and create export opportunities.”

Mr McCormack, who is also Infrastructure and Transport Minister, said he welcomed the “General Aviation Flight Plan” and had asked the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to work with the group in responding to the three priorities.

Mr McCormack also said the advisory group would be continued a further two years to allow work outlined in the plan to be ­finished. Overseas airlines have poached major airline pilots and while Australia’s airlines had sourced pilots from general aviation, the sector has been shrinking.

The situation has prompted the government to allow foreign pilots into Australia on two-year work visas to keep regional air routes operating, while Qantas’s regional arm, QantasLink, wants the government to extend the time foreign pilots can stay.

The group’s high-level strategy document says there are pressures on the sector, “such as an ageing workforce and commercial airline competition for personnel”.

The group will work with an existing panel, led by Australian Aviation Associations Forum chair and former Airservices boss Greg Russell, that is reviewing aviation skills and training.

The review is expected to be completed in the middle of the year.

The panel is aiming to make recommendations on supporting the training and retention of aviators and backing Australia as an exporter of aviation training and skills.

The “flight plan” document also says CASA should be given “guiding principles” for future administration of regulation as it applies to general aviation and suggestions to ensure rules are applied consistently.

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Industry must pilot future

12:00amMARTIN LAVERTY
With the aviation sector facing a storm of challenges, a new industry-driven plan is vital to finding clear skies.

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General Aviation Flight Plan charts a successful future

Former transport minister Darren Chester in early 2017 offered general aviation a rare opportunity. Rare because the then minister invited the sector to identify ways to ensure a sustainable future.

This rarity was reinforced this week when Deputy Prime Minister and current Transport Minister Michael McCormack received the industry’s General Aviation Flight Plan. The plan identifies options for the industry to guarantee its own future.

The Deputy Prime Minister has welcomed the plan and has signalled the Australian government’s willingness to work with our industry to achieve its aspirations.

General aviation is a diverse sector. It covers emergency services, agricultural work, instructional flying, and other small aircraft use. It doesn’t often capture headlines. When it does, the voices who often get attention have glasses half empty. These voices blame government, ignoring international realities.

December’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics General Aviation study affirms what most aviators knew. General aviation in Australia is in transition. A similar transition is occurring in the US, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

The study shows traditional general aviation activity overall has decreased in Australia, as it has in other countries. Yet new trends are emerging. The composition of the GA fleet has changed, with more sport and recreational aircraft. There is significant growth in the number of remotely piloted aircraft. These new technologies, if harnessed and safely integrated into our aviation system, will contribute to Australia’s social and economic gain.

Disruption and change is a constant in all parts of the Australian and international economies. There should be no surprise the BITRE study reports change is ­occurring in general aviation.

While the study was being conducted, industry leaders through the Deputy Prime Minister’s General Aviation Advisory Group were developing a work plan — the General Aviation Flight Plan.

The plan first seeks to articulate a long-term strategic outlook for general aviation in Australia.

It then wants to put forward the sector’s advice on how air safety regulation can support ­general aviation through clear, consistently applied, and proportionally responsive administration.

Finally, the plan seeks to maintain and enhance general aviation industry capability, through better workforce planning and appropriate access to airspace and infrastructure.

It’s perhaps this third area of industry capability and workforce development that offers the best prospects for general aviation’s growth. Here’s why.

Australia is experiencing a pilot and aviation engineer shortage. Pilot shortages have happened before in Australia, but this time it’s different. Australia’s two major airlines recruited from ­Defence or the nation’s regional carriers during shortages in the past. Regional carriers would enlist from general aviation. General aviation kept training, small and big aircraft kept flying. It wasn’t always smooth, but the system worked.

Recently, international carriers have been recruiting heavily in Australia. They like the quality of Australia’s aviation workforce. Why wouldn’t they? This again has sent our two major airlines to recruit, and the staff movement pattern has again been triggered through the system.

Even we at the Royal Flying Doctor Service are facing pilot and engineer shortages.

A solution is best advanced from within the industry itself, by encouraging young people into the profession. Expanded industry training capacity will fulfil national needs and create export opportunities.

Government, the opposition, and the broader industry appear united on the need for aviation workforce effort. The Deputy Prime Minister and his department are already assisting an industry-led expert panel on aviation skills and training. The General Aviation Advisory Group will work with that panel to ensure it addresses general aviation’s future training needs.

All of us involved in Australia’s aviation system want to see this work succeed, suggesting the glass is indeed half full for general aviation’s and Australia’s flying future.

Martin Laverty is chair of the federal government’s General Aviation Advisory Group, and CEO of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia.

P7 post - #135 

"..There is a most satisfactory – as yet unconfirmed rumour floating around that AOPA (Oz) have been rehabilitated to the GAG panel – an have a voice with the ministerial choir. This, if true is a very, very good thing. AOPA joining in the debate, despite petty differences can only add weight to the long held argument supporting a change to the ‘the Act’.

That change will release CASA from the tight constraints they are obliged, by ‘the Act’ to operate under. Maybe, perhaps, there is a candle flickering in window, far, far away. Keep plodding along chaps; one foot after another..."

Test of true colours? - If the P7 rumour is true then GAAG and the Greg Russell led TAAAF should be throwing their support behind the Aviation summit and a change to the Act -  


MTF...P2