Cuts threaten air safety in the bush

Date: 02 May 2000

Senate Hearing reveals Armidale, Coonabarabran and Mudgee Left Without Vital Aviation Safety Service

"Evidence provided by the Community and Public Sector Union to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee yeaterday revealed that Airservices Australia's transfer of Directed Traffic Information (DTI) functions from Flight Service to TAAATS has led to breakdowns in the delivery of vital safety services.

On April 16, less than a month after the transfer, Flight Information Services were unavailable to pilots for a period of 6 hours in the Sandon Sector. The Sandon Sector includes airspace over Mudgee, Armidale and Coonabarabran."

"Airservices Australia's reckless cutting of jobs and services places aviation safety at risk. The jobs and services most hard hit are those in rural and regional Australia" said Mr Adrian O'Connell, Secretary of the CPSU Aviation Section, appearing before the Senate Committee today.

CPSU and Civil Air (Air Traffic Control) representatives highlighted further risks that the DTI transition project poses for aviation safety, including:

 Cutting the number of High Frequency (HF) radio outlets across regional Australia from 17 sites to approximately 7 or 8;

 Relying on 4 operators working on multiple HF channels to relay information backwards and forwards between pilots and Air Traffic Controllers;

 Risks from the TAAATS display system not being configured to easily display non radar air traffic, massively increasing ATC workload; and
 Downgrading the reliability of HF communications across most of Australia's landmass.

The project has been unscheduled and unplanned. The Airservices' Board only approved the project in November 1999 with full implementation proposed for mid June. Commercial Operations Group management have left virtually no time for appropriate technical planning and implementation of the changes.

Airservices technical and engineering jobs have been cut by over 60% since 1990 and Airservices plans even more cuts. The level of cuts compared to other major infrastructure organisations, places aviation infrastructure at risk of catastrophic failure. Mr O'Connell called for a freeze on further cuts to services and jobs until the Australian public have the facts put before them about the effects of the Government's and Airservices job and service cutting agenda.

Contact

Adrian O'Connell,
Secretary CPSU Aviation Section
Mob: 0418 977 170
Office (02) 9211-9292

Background

Alistair Waters,
CPSU National Organiser
Mob: 0417 547 407
Office: (03) 9206-2266

For further information

Contact:	Adrian O'Connell
Union:	CPSU - National Office
Phone:	02 9211 9292
WWW:	www.cpsu.org

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