Regionals seek policy definition
Regional airline industry leaders will meet this week at their annual conference in Coolum, united in a fight to secure the future of their threatened industry.
The Regional Aviation Association of Australia’s (RAAA) is now looking to government for decisive policies that will ensure regional Australia is not further disadvantaged by the policy vacuum they say has increasingly threatened their industry since the Ansett collapse in 2001/02.
RAAA members employ 2,500 staff, have an annual turnover of over $1 billion, and carry two million passengers and 23,000 tonnes of freight annually, providing vital transport links throughout the nation to smaller centres that cannot support medium-sized jet services.
Bureau of Transport & Regional Economics (BTRE) figures show that the number of regional communities served has dropped from 251 in 1986 to 194 in 2001, and to 145 (counting the capitals and other major centres) in 2006.
RAAA points to an apparent lack of a coherent set of policies either for transport of for regional Australia:
“There appears to be a struggle going on between the economic rationalists who believe that the future of regional Australia should be left solely to market forces, and those who believe that all Australians are entitled to a certain minimum level of service and amenity.
“The key issue in understanding the current position of regional aviation is that with a few notable exceptions, the industry provides an inadequate return on investment, and without an adequate return, no industry is sustainable.”
RAAA has identified the individual cost elements that suppress growth and profitability primarily as functions of government policy and practice.
At the head of the list are CASA regulatory costs, which the organisation says are “artificially high because much of what CASA does has no safety benefit, and should therefore be abandoned, but field officers seem unable to let go of functions they once performed, even when it is evident that those functions are valueless, and while high priority tasks are either not performed at all or are delayed typically by six months or more, allegedly because of a “lack of resources”. Yet CASA seems disinterested in becoming more efficient. After all, when it can simply charge industry whatever it costs to run its regulatory services, why should it? It is becoming increasingly clear that only an external review will resolve the unjustifiable costs that CASA imposes on the industry.”
Next come security compliance costs, which regional operators believe do not necessarily enhance security, and some of which it describes as “expensive window dressing.” The security systems put in place after 9/11, while mostly relevant at major cities, simply fail to recognise the realities of regional aviation, as exemplified by a decision that all airports in Australia that receive scheduled airline flights must comply with security systems requirements similar to those at the major airports. The decision saw unrealistic, ineffective and wasteful security installations imposed on small airports that receive even one nine-passenger aircraft weekly. Included are remote airfields like Birdsville, Aboriginal communities and the Torres Strait islands, where inappropriate and ineffective security installations include night tarmac lighting on airfields where aircraft cannot fly at night, and chain link fences for short distances on both sides of the terminal building – but nowhere else on the airport.
RAAA also notes the disastrous effects of airport privatisation on regional and general aviation, which have resulted in some cases in substantially increased costs, the loss of investments in buildings and other infrastructure, as well as loss of security of tenure at some airports which creates an impossible investment climate: “The sense of betrayal felt by those who have essentially lost their life savings to airport owners as a direct result of privatisation is palpable,” says RAAA.
These problems are worst at remote airports which are beginning to deteriorate due to lack of funding, which affects both regional services and the operations of the Royal Flying Doctor Service: “We believe that there is a strong case for government assistance to the affected communities in order to keep airports open to essential services, including especially aeromedical operations. While the economic rationalists might think that the cost of maintaining runways in remote communities for use by aeromedical services is high, one can only assume that the alternative cost to the public purse of building, equipping and staffing hospitals in those areas if aeromedical services were to fail, would be difficult if not impossible to sustain.”
The RAAA blames staff shortages as: “the end result of years of neglect of trade training by both government and the industry. While RAAA members are doing what they can to encourage and foster trade training, they believe the example of the former Queensland Government is a model for other States: “We need to do something fairly fast about the overall cost and availability of trade training. The Queensland Government has put its money firmly where its mouth is with the establishment of Aviation Australia and related developments, but more needs to be done by both state and federal governments to encourage and foster trade training.”
To complicate their futures, RAAA notes that manufacturers can no longer be expected to produce new and more efficient low capacity regional aircraft, and that existing types will need to be maintained for another 20 years: “..…but we can expect the cost of operating them to the high standards that we require to increase substantially in that time. And since we expect CASA to be an integral link in gathering, analysing and disseminating airworthiness information, its continuing airworthiness function will demand better use by CASA of its existing resources overall in order to allow increasing resources to be allocated to the continuing airworthiness function.
RAAA members have amply identified the problems they are facing. At their three-day Convention from next Wednesday – September 30 – to October 2, they will be looking for lasting solutions.
