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Editorial

Crap policy equals crap results 13 August, 2008

Is it too much to ask that we stop the cost-recovery culture and look at what aviation has to offer? Guy Allen says no…

The federal government’s newly-released report into general aviation identifies four areas of concern:

The selling of secondary airports into private hands;
A shortage of skilled pilots;
The high cost of regulation for end-users;
The high cost of buying aircraft.

You can identify one common cause in all of that: the insistence of the government in applying thoroughly modern cost-attribution accounting rules to general aviation, without looking at the cultural penalty. Or the benefits the sector offers to the country’s transport infrastructure.

Let’s look at issue number one. The sheer stupidity of selling general aviation airports to private industry was, and remains, breathtaking.
If I walked over to my neighbors’ house, and told them the street they live on had been sold off (to a business, on terms which are confidential) in the name of economic efficiency, and by the way they would now pay a hefty fee to drive beyond their front gate, how do you think they would react? That’s what pilots have had to deal with. For example, landing fees at Essendon have risen from around $15 to over $60 in the last few years.

Issue number 2: a shortage of skilled pilots. Training a pilot to basic licence level costs a minimum of $10,000. Think more like $70,000-plus to basic commercial, which will not get them an airline job.
If one of my kids wants to get a tertiary arts degree, they get discounted teaching rates and a federal loan. So they should, as they will eventually add to the wealth of the country.
What is there in place for pilots? Sod-all. In fact, less than that. Flying training is available to those who have dedicated and optimistic financial backers, often parents who stretch the finances (and get no tax breaks), and not to the poor who might also be talented.

Issue 3: the high cost of regulation for end-users. We have two pilots in the family and, within the space of a few years, we have gone from paying basic maintenance fees for licences, to a few hundred dollars a year for ID and airport gate passes. Plus there is the aggro of filling out new forms, chasing paperwork, and annoying police or JPs for ID checks. Really, we’d be much safer if we could just go for a fly and keep the skills current.

Issue 4: the air fleet is ageing. This one is more difficult. I’d love to be able to buy a new Cessna/Piper/Cirrus, or even a recent one. But how much tax am I paying on the purchase? And how have we arrived at the point where a basic service can add up a to couple of k? I can’t help thinking that the current regulations have encouraged mini monopolies (or duopolies in the richer areas) to the detriment of safety.
When you compare aviation to the worlds of automotive and motorcycling, you have to wonder if the alleged safety pay-offs are worth the cost. Particularly given my experiences with older aircraft which, hour for hour, have been less reliable than my road vehicles.

General and amateur aviation have too long been treated as some quirky thing that happens on the fringes. Anyone with knowledge of the sectors will tell you the opposite: they are actually the breeding ground for an essential element of the transport infrastructure. Which is training pilots. And there’s a worldwide shortage of them.

Where are you going to get your pilots from? Walk-ins will be fine if trained properly. At some stage in the process (training through to pilot in command) you need someone who knows how to handle a grumpy cross-wind, who can actually fly. Circuits in a Cessna or similar teach you that – it’s experience that only GA can realistically supply at reasonable cost.

The fed gov report is a nice first step. But will anything happen as a result?

Here’s a recommendation: stop taxing and charging general and amateur aviation out of existence.

I’m tired of paying massive landing fees for an airport I should really know about; And for fake security cards that are never examined; And taxes which double the prices of fuel; And taxes which make aircraft too expensive; And getting none of the training cost breaks enjoyed by tertiary students.

And being treated like an over-regulated burden on society.

Aviation is essential infrastructure, and those of us on the ‘ground floor’ should be given a break.
Guy Allen

See this link for the full Fed Gov report (PDF)

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AllFlying.com
Australia's online aviation mag