Flight Training – Director of CAA confirmed they are doing a review of flight training and that this had largely been completed.  This is a desk top issue on statistics and will be shared with industry.  However from information presented on Helicopter accident statistics that invloved flights with an instructor is incurring a disproportionately and elevated level of accident.  This is the same information HAI had gleaned from its own investigations of the helicopter industry globally.  So to that degree we’re in line with the rest of the world.   The Director acknowledged that the flight training issue was a complex one and there would be close consultation with industry before any changes were advocated.
(AIA newsletter dated 26 Sep 2011)

Breaking NEWS debrief from meeting with Minister Joyce.  Here‘s a copy of what we intended to say.This document has gone to MOT/CAA officials who are out of the loop at the moment but we’re hopeful will be consulted.  The Minister said – we’ve solved half his problem with our submission to reduce the cap but not his whole problem which is essentially accelerating the payback rates (reducing the payback period).

He knows that the public policy analysis of the problem has been and is inadequate in otherwords the numbers are shonkey,  But most importantly he now understands the criticality of good quality integrated training for the solo flying component.  He knows this is not about a “P plate or resticted learner driver” license but an integral part of education and provision of quality training.  While we think a follow up submission will finally put this issue to bed we need to put our collective thoughts together as to how we might accelerate the payback period or reduce the size of the initial loan.

We discussed the concept of the student contributing a portion – say around $10 k but this too didn’t seem to go far enough to reducing government’s exposure.  The Minister understands very clearly that he’s dealing with a very strategic issue and if the solution was simple he conceded it would have happened before today. He also thinks employers should contribute a lot more – the problem is which employers. 

Put your thinking caps on – we don’t want to go too far outside the existing public policy settings because in part the government is its own enemy in this area by not setting the SAC component of funding at the right level but we do have an opportunity to influece his thinking.  We have about a week before he will be finalising his views.  He’s given us a further undertaking to brief us before any decsion is announced.

(AIA Newsletter dated 5 August 2011)