Employment | GAA

Pilot shortage: Australia to relax visa laws to attract foreign pilots

January 1, 2018

AAP, 28 December 2017 Foreign pilots will once again be allowed into Australia on working visas to help address a shortage that threatens to ground aircraft and cancel flights. The occupations eligible for foreign worker visas were slashed during a government shake-up in April but from next month, pilots will once again be granted access after concerns about the national shortage. The Regional Aviation …

A proposal to challenge the new CAA levies

May 27, 2017

By now, operators will have received a letter and information booklet from the CAA detailing the new safety levies that will take effect from 1 July 2017. These levies have been introduced despite efforts by a number of individuals and organisations to enlighten the CAA and Minister of Transport of the failings in the consultation process, as well as the inequities in the methodology …

Client Satisfaction Surveys in a post-factual world…

March 26, 2017

The CAA is either living in a fools’ paradise and thinks all its customers are happy, or it is deeply afraid to ask them. We can’t think of any other reason why the CAA refuses to hire a neutral organisation and tell it go to the customers and ask some honest questions. We also have convincing proof that no company or organisation can rely …

CAA Notices – The tentacles of regulation just keep growing longer

In mid-February, the CAA announced its intention to publish CAA Notices as a means of ensuring that “the regulatory framework remains responsive and adaptable to change.” On the surface, these objectives almost appear noble. But when we peel back the layers, what emerges is a worrying erosion of the checks and balances that have underpinned aviation rule-making since the early 1990s. A CAA Notice …

CAA funding review: Political leadership is now essential

September 26, 2016

Since our update last month, we’ve achieved much greater clarity around a few things: The Minister of Transport, Simon Bridges, is still waiting for the final Cabinet paper and Regulatory Impact Statement on proposed charges. He believes that these two papers are months away, not weeks. He has given an undertaking that the Chairman of the Board will respond to our letter calling for …

Ag pilot competency checks: CAA leaves a mess in its wake

August 21, 2016

The CAA is clearly in difficulties over its plans to reform the testing regime for agricultural pilots, particularly since the GAA pointed out that much of the proposed reform was not practical – particularly for the single-seat, single-control fixed-wing aircraft. Yes, it may be “legal” using the subtle differences in interpretation between a “passenger”, a“crew member” and a “required crew member”. However, legality does …

CAA Funding Review: Mud sticks – and so do promises

August 18, 2016

It wasn’t just former Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee who, in 2012 (when imposing those dramatic rises), promised to reduce or remove the need for increased CAA charges in the 2015-2018 triennial review. He spoke for every minister of the day. In 2016, that still involves at least 13 ministers in the present Cabinet. There seems to be an official reluctance to even acknowledge Mr …

The future for our CVD pilots: GD Review Panel’s findings, in black and white

August 16, 2016

The full report of the Colour Vision Deficiency General Direction Review Panel runs to 87 pages. In the interests of brevity, we have condensed it to three A4 pages. Fifty-nine written submissions were received in response to the consultation process. Of these, 15 were from aviation groups and the remaining 44 from individuals. The Principal Medical Officer, Dr Dougal Watson, also provided the panel …

Now the CAA puts small aviation businesses in its sights

May 16, 2016

Many of us may be thinking that, this time around, GA has been let off lightly in the CAA’s triennial funding review. But we could be very wrong. Did you know, for example, that the CAA is reducing charges for many big operators such as airports and airlines, but plans to radically increase them for many small GA commercial operators, if it can convince …

Letter from America: I don’t want to be like New Zealand…

March 1, 2016

This is from Paul Bertorelli’s Avweb.com site based in Florida… The other day, I was floating along in the Cub listening to the radio chatter when it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard a native English speaker for several minutes. I listened for several more and determined that, sure enough, there were no native English speakers on the frequency. Judging by the accents, …

Category: Employment