Employment | GAA

Pilot shortage? MoBIE tells Air New Zealand: We can’t see one

December 24, 2013

Air New Zealand’s application to have Aeroplane Pilot added to the Immediate Skills Shortage List has been rejected. This is an encouraging result for GAA, the New Zealand Airline Pilots Association and – most important of all – every Kiwi whose ambition is to fly for their national airline. GAA submitted a 17,000-word rebuttal of the airline’s claim (much of it written by students …

You’d like a trial flight? OK, but just one smile, and you’re nicked

December 7, 2013

The latest Vector magazine contains an article headlined Adventure Flights are not Trial Flights, and says “A so-called trial flight, or flight instruction, should not be used as a backdoor method for conducting commercial activities such as adventure or scenic flights without certification”. What follows is a rather baffling piece of work, based on Part 115 – itself inspired by panic and created in …

O Canada! Where the skies are vast, the charges are fair and the Admin is sane…

November 16, 2013

Today, NAV CANADA – the Canadian equivalent of our Airways – published its 2013 Customer Guide to Charges, and GAA is quietly proud to be the first website in the world outside Canada to reveal some of the contents. They will come as an unpleasant surprise to Kiwi general aviators, still hurting from Airways’ heavy increases earlier this year. We also hope that they …

How the Brits are taking an axe to needless GA red tape

November 9, 2013

The British Government and the CAA have announced plans to strip away unnecessary bureaucracy for the UK general aviation sector. One of the key changes will be the setting up by April 2014 of a new GA Unit within the CAA dedicated to more proportionate, effective regulation that supports and encourages a dynamic GA sector. Following the General Aviation Red Tape Challenge, which found …

Would the last PPL holder out of here please turn off the clubhouse lights?

September 30, 2013

Without wishing to tempt fate, this is a semi-serious request. When it comes to GA, fate needs no tempting because the GAA survey of aviators has already revealed alarming statistics that include a major switch by PPLs to either the RPL or to microlights, and provides evidence of serious damage to general aviation. Many PPL holders say they have given up altogether because they …

SOS! Support Our Survey – but time is short

September 22, 2013

When Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee convened on September 19 to hear submissions opposing what Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee signed into law last year, dramatically increasing costs to GA operators in particular, consultation was a key topic. Notably – nine months after the first objections were raised – the Ministry of Transport suddenly revealed its response at the hearing and the Ministry’s representative declared …

Colour deficient pilots: Is there light at the end of this tunnel?

August 31, 2013

GAA supporters will be aware that the CAA is at last taking a serious look at the way it handles colour deficiency in pilots, following a vigorous campaign by Colour Vision Aviators, led by Nelson-based Tim Woods. But you may be unaware of the detailed background to this issue, and how it generated the CVA campaign. Tim Woods reports: It has been a very …

Crisis in the airline hangars: A badly tuned piece of anti-social engineering

August 26, 2013

Hot on the heels of a claimed skills shortage of pilots, in which an application by Air New Zealand and PricewaterhouseCoopers said that only eight people in our great nation qualify for an interview for airline pilot positions, Air NZ now threatens up to 190 redundancies in its team of wide-body aircraft engineers. In stark contrast, at Singapore Airlines, SIA Engineering is benefiting from …

GAA supporters versus PwC and Air New Zealand: We rest our case.

August 9, 2013

Submissions for or against the PricewaterhouseCoopers/Air New Zealand application to have Aeroplane Pilot added to the list of Essential Skills In Demand for immigrants closed on Friday August 9. GAA met the extended deadline with 24 hours to spare, thanks to an astonishing response from supporters who – within the space of 14 days – provided a wealth of evidence and comment to combat …

You lose some, you WINZ some: Chuckle at this hearth-warming Winter’s Tale

July 31, 2013

Pity the poverty-stricken New Zealand helicopter pilot. Jobs are very hard to find these days, unless you flee the country for Canada’s Arctic North – or other hostile territory. The only upside to New Zealand’s short winter days and even shorter wages is the onset of the frost-protection season, with the prospect of lucrative pre-dawn work to keep a few logs on the wood-burning …

Category: Employment