[Peetwo]

REX on the 'other' Aunty today - :

Federal air safety watchdog causing 'enormous damage' to regional aviation: Regional Express
ABC Broken Hill
By Sofie Wainwright and Cherie von Hörchner
Updated about an hour agoWed 27 Jul 2016, 6:06pm
Photo: Rex said it may close some services as a result of additional costs that CASA are set to impose. (Rex)

Map: Broken Hill 2880
The airline Regional Express says over-regulation by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has cost it millions of dollars and could eventually force the closure of some services.

Regional Express, also known as Rex, said CASA had caused "irreparable" damage to regional aviation because of safety rules introduced over about a decade.

The airline said the introduction of new regulations next year, relating to flight and duty times, would add further substantial cost to the company for no additional safety benefit.

The new regulations are aimed at reducing pilot fatigue by changing rostering requirements, which Rex said might require airlines to employ more staff.

"These additional costs imposed by CASA may result in several destinations that Rex currently serves becoming non-viable and consequently the closure of services to some communities," a Rex spokeswoman said.

"Some of the rule changes by CASA have resulted in additional staff in several areas. [The new regulations] will require increased pilot numbers and add costs to the business.

"CASA has totally ignored the industry's plea to produce evidence to justify these unnecessary new rules."

CASA declined to comment.

Regional Express was born in 2002 from a merger of Kendall and Hazelton Airlines after the collapse of Ansett.

The airline said the closure of 17 regional airlines in the past 12 years alone shows that regional aviation was "threatened" in Australia.

"CASA has caused enormous damage to the industry with expensive and over-complex regulation that is seldom based on any safety evidence," the spokeswoman said.

Rex will not exist in a decade: Dick Smith

The comments by Rex come after aviator and entrepreneur Dick Smith slammed CASA, saying it imposes too great a financial burden on small airlines.

Mr Smith, a former CASA chairman, said it had increased costs across the general aviation sector in areas like training, licensing and aircraft maintenance.

He said the regulatory system in Australia was the costliest in the world, and that he did not believe Rex would be in business in 10 years' time.

"I am amazed that Rex is still in business," Mr Smith said.

"You have a regulator which is hostile to small companies like Rex, and they just have this one-way ratchet of increasing costs and red tape," Mr Smith said.

"Eventually a company like Rex will be driven out of business.

"[CASA] is going to end up with an incredibly safe system but most country towns, places like Broken Hill, they simply won't have an air service.

"You'll find that it will be so expensive that small operators won't be able to operate there."

Union supports changes

The Australian Federation of Air Pilots said the new regulations around fatigue may impose additional costs on the airlines but would be worth it.

"There may well be additional costs but the benefit that flows from that is a much safer industry," spokesman James Lauchland said.

"In our view, CASA isn't perfect and there are a number of problems, however we think the moves they're making to replace the outdated, one-size-fits-all fatigue rules are positive and should be supported by airlines.

"The new fatigue rules are backed by extensive international scientific evidence on sleep and alertness and replace a system that is well and truly outdated," he said.

P2 comment: AFAP - WTF? "..In our view, CASA isn't perfect and there are a number of problems, however we think the moves they're making to replace the outdated, one-size-fits-all fatigue rules are positive and should be supported by airlines.

The new fatigue rules are backed by extensive international scientific evidence on sleep and alertness and replace a system that is well and truly outdated,..."
But hang on a sec wasn't it the AFAP who less than a year ago were being extremely vocal in their criticism of CAO 48.1?? Oh but that's right I seem to recall they had a certain division amongst their ranks: AFAP - Strange dichotomy on CAO48.1??

..Ok from those links there was two that the subject matter was CAO48.1. The 1st was correspondence from Captain Gardiner (above) to CASA (SMS & HF, standards division) and was addressing perceived issues that the EMS/MT sector saw with appendix 3 & 4 (in particular 4B) - Submission on CAO 48.1 Appendix 4B.

...Our submission is based on feedback from members working in the emergency medical services field and the views of the Federation’s Technical Committee, made up of working airline and commercial pilots under the direction of the AFAP’s Technical Director.

As a professional association, the members and staff of the Federation are active in promoting flight safety and improving Australian and global aviation standards. The Federation’s diverse pilot membership base places it in a strong position to comment on the proposed changes to Flight Time Limitations.

Owing to the short timeline, our submission should not be regarded as comprehensive. We would welcome the opportunity to further explain and supplement our submission via discussion with all interested parties...

Hmm (tin foil hat donned ) ..okay so maybe (AFAP) Peter G, just maybe CASA SMS & HF, standards division have taken your advice/suggestion (the part in bold) - along with other industry submissions - on-board and have simply decided to delay the rollout of CAO48.1...   

The other (CAsA) PG: ...“In making these adjustments CASA has taken into account the need to give CASA and the aviation community adequate time to transition to the new rules, while ensuring appropriate safety standards are maintained,’’..

I can thoroughly understand (AFAP) PG's cynicism, because quite frankly we've all seen similar delaying/obfuscation tactics before. However it is perhaps a bit rich (in this case) to expect CAsA to react quite so quickly, when less than a week ago DAS Skidmore would have received this correspondence from the AFAP Prez, Capt Booth:

..I am writing to express our concern about the proposed Medical Transport & Emergency
Service Operations Appendix to CAO 48.1, 2013.

The Federation was not involved in the original working group to develop the proposal & it was only through our members that we were made aware of the draft. Following representation to CASA we were invited to attend the most recent working group. As we made clear at the meeting, we have no concern about operators conducting emergency retrieval services, search & rescue, rig & range safety or the myriad other low rate operations, where Crew Members are on standby for extended periods, under the proposed Appendix 4b. These crew members would be rarely if ever subject to cumulative fatigue however, we are very concerned about the crew members who are involved primarily in patient transfer services...

 MTF...P2