[Peetwo]

ASA the Empire of the RAeS cash cow - Happy trough-feeding for all

Jamie scooped this good news story, via SMH/AFR: 

Airservices to undertake 'unprecedented' freeze of charges to airlines


Date March 15, 2016

• (29)
  
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Jamie Freed
Senior Reporter


Airservices Australia costs had been increasing faster than revenue. Photo: James Davies

Airservices Australia has abandoned a five-year pricing proposal it put to airlines last year and will instead freeze its fees until July 2017 amid a cost-cutting drive by new chief executive Jason Harfield.

"It is unprecedented in the sense we are holding off putting a new pricing proposal making sure we are as efficient as we possibly can," he said. "The prices will stay as they are. We are going to suck it up. Realistically [a new deal] wouldn't come into effect until 1 July 2017."

The freeze in fees will benefit all domestic and international airlines, which are reliant on government-owned Airservices for air traffic control and airport firefighting services. Airservices collected $1.01 billion of revenue in financial year 2015.

The current pricing agreement expires on June 30. In August, Airservices had proposed a 5.3 per cent rise in the first year of the five-year deal, with a weighted average of 3.3 per cent over the life of the agreement.

Qantas Airways, the biggest client of Airservices, had said in a submission that it was "concerned" with the substantial price increase and cost impact of the proposal.

The Board of Airline Representatives of Australia, which represents international airlines flying to and from Australia, raised issues with Airservices spiralling cost base. Airservices enterprise bargaining agreements allowed for pay increases of 4 per cent a year, compared with the general Commonwealth public service offer of about 1.5 per cent a year.

Lower demand

Mr Harfield said Airservices' cost base had grown by 6 to 7 per cent a year because more resources were put into project management over the last few years at a time when revenue was flattening due to lower demand from the airlines.

He said the organisation would now focus far more on delivering the best financial outcomes for its customers.

"If I can cut the cost out of the organisation to reduce prices by 1 per cent I will save someone like the Qantas Group $4 million a year," he said. "If I adjust charges for a service that reduces fuel use by 1 per cent a year I will give them $40 million of value."

Mr Harfield said initiatives, such as requiring the use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) tracking equipment on all instrument flight rules capable aircraft by February 2017 and the OneSKY Australia project that will combine civilian and military airspace management by 2021, would assist with fuel efficiency.

"ADS-B allows us to have surveillance across the entire continent where we haven't had it before," he said. "Instead of having 10 minutes between two airlines tracking between the same point we can bring it down to five miles and that becomes more efficient."

But while Mr Harfield said airline feedback would be taken into account when the next pricing deal was proposed, Airservices was not likely to end its policy of effectively subsidising smaller airports with fees paid from the big capital city airports.

"The international airlines say they should not be having the ability to cross-subsidise regional firefighting services because they don't fly there," he said. "But the problem we have is because of the 350,000 passenger requirement [for firefighting services], if we went to location-specific pricing, the price per tonne of that service would be unaffordable to those flying [to regional airports]."

This bit - "..The Board of Airline Representatives of Australia, which represents international airlines flying to and from Australia, raised issues with Airservices spiralling cost base. Airservices enterprise bargaining agreements allowed for pay increases of 4 per cent a year, compared with the general Commonwealth public service offer of about 1.5 per cent a year..."

One wonders if that is to placate the ATCO fraternity from uprising against Harfwit & his fellow Executive trough-feeders.   

Comment on the above from a high profile industry stakeholder:

Did everyone see the AFR yesterday that quoted ASA agreeing to 4% PA enterprise bargain pay increases when the public service average is 1.5% . Why? Because they were proposing to increases Charges 5.3% next year and 3 % thereafter. The ASA Acting CEO, Jason Harfield, was quoted in the article as having to retract the charge increases under pressure from the Airlines. Let’s see if he tears up the recent Enterprise Bargain excessive wage increases.  I bet the pay rises are set in stone. Very dumb commercially to increase your cost base and at the same time give up revenue increase unless you have plenty of meat on the bone. With 200 ground based aids closing he may have. The GA Industry was supposed to be compensated with these sorts of ASA Capex savings for ADSB installations if you believe the CASA RIS on ADSB.

Funny how News Corp weren't privy to this significant industry story -

Doesn't even rate a mention in today's 'that Man' article via the Oz

Concerns raised about Airservices Australia and OneSKY expenses

• Ean Higgins
  
• The Australian
  
• March 18, 2016 12:00AM
  

Reporter


An Airservices spokesperson said OneSKY was running to schedule.

Airservices Australia has spent considerable sums of money flying staff to France to discuss its $1.5 billion OneSKY program with the lead contractor, the Paris-based Thales aerospace group, despite Thales having a large operation in Australia to serve its customers here.

An Airservices insider revealed the trips to France to The Australian and claimed they were one example of profligate spending on the $1.5bn OneSKY project, which is designed to integrate the nation’s civilian and military air traffic control and navigation systems into a single state-of-the-art network.

An Airservices spokesperson said OneSKY was running to schedule for completion by 2021, and that “work currently undertaken is within the approved budget”.

Government-owned Airservices has come under scrutiny in a Senate committee over the past year for huge bonuses paid to its executives, and allegations of possible conflicts of interest in its dealings with a Canberra-based group called the International Centre for Complex Project Management.

It emerged that an ICCPM director who has since become its chairman, former RAAF officer Harry Bradford, had as of the middle of last year been paid more than $1 million by Airservices to negotiate on its behalf with Thales on OneSKY, over a period understood to be about 18 months.

The contractual dealings between Airservices and ICCPM over OneSKY are the subject of an investigation by the Australian National Audit Office, which is due to table its report to parliament in May.

Thales, according to its website, employs about 3200 people in more than 35 sites across Australia, and Thales Australia recorded revenues of $1bn in 2014.

The Airservices spokesperson would not say why it was necessary to fly Airservices executives to France for discussions when Thales had a very large subsidiary in Australia to serve myriad local clients.

Nor would it supply answers as to how many Airservices executives had travelled to France on how many occasions, by what class of air travel, which hotels they stayed at, or how much had been spent in all.

But in a statement to The Australian, Airservices said:

“Senior executives from Thales, Airservices and Defence meet, from time to time, as part of the negotiation process for the OneSKY Australia program. Meetings generally have taken place in Australia, and on occasion in France.

“All travel is undertaken in accordance with Airservices travel policy, which is consistent with the Australian government’s International Travel Policy with respect to class of airfare, hotels and incidental expenses.”

Airservices has progressively announced contracts with Thales, starting in February last year with agreement that it would develop the new system and start work orders in July that year.

Last month, it signed a contract with Thales for advanced work on software design assurance.

Recently appointed Airservices chief executive Jason Harfield had accountability for the “leadership, acquisition and delivery” of OneSKY as executive general manager of future service delivery for two years until August last year.

As revealed by The Australian last week, Airservices has appointed a senior figure in the Department of Defence, Air Vice Marshal Chris Deeble, to head the OneSKY project from here, reporting to Mr Harfield.

So Creedy is engaging with Fairfax but not his old stomping ground - how bizarre
MTF..P2
Ps On the now 2nd VH-NGA OVERDUE  Final..Final report, perhaps we could start an official O&O thread that captures all ASA, ATSB & CASA projects, investigations, response to recommendations etc that are overdue and evidently being obfuscated?   

Here is a perfect example from a true industry luminary on the progress of the ASRR : 

Regarding how many of the ASRR recommendations have been implemented, I can advise my score card is as follows.

Assessing the information tabled by Minister Truss in parliament in February, showing implementation status as at 31 December 2015, I assessed the following status.

CASA 29% implemented, 15% partially implemented and 56% not done

DEPT 20% implemented, 60% partially implemented and 20% not done

ATSB 33% implemented, 33% partially implemented and 33% not done.

This is being is benevolent as possible.  Other may have a harder view.  A number of those regarded as implemented will require ongoing monitoring to ensure change remains in place and/or that the culture has changed.

No matter how you view it, the implementation rate at CASA is poor, and indicates a lack of enthusiasm for change.   As advised to their Board in February 2015, many of the recommendations (more than 10)  are simple and low hanging fruit which could have been implemented within months.   Here we are 22 months after the report was presented to the Minister and 16 months after the Minister accepted most of the recommendations, with more than half the CASA recommendations not acquitted.