[Peetwo]

Fairless on Oz 1950s ATC system and how to fix?? - 

Via the UP, Geoff Fairless in reply to 'Traffic Is Err Was': https://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-a...st11501413

Hi TIEW - as you would remember from your FSO days, under CASRs you are not allowed to operate when sick, therefore unlimited sick leave must be a prerequisite of any organisation that operates under CASRs. To limit sick leave would be a contravention of the CASRs. Do you not agree?

But that is not the problem.......

Airservices is a Government organisation that is required to recover its cost from the industry. This is, was, and always will be, complete nonsense for a public service that has monopoly control of a national asset; that is the airspace available for flying.
Other comparable countries do not do this. Their airspace control agencies are either military, a joint civil-military agency or a not-for-profit civil agency. That is a different thread, so let's return to Airservices.

Qantas claims, is it 60% of air traffic in Australia? Hence, they pay the majority of the money "earned" by Airservices. Almost all of that revenue is "earned" in the upper airspace and particularly in the approaches to Australia gifted to us by ICAO, the Oceanic airspace. That is why they concentrate their "One-Skys" on this area. A fundamental requirement of One Sky is the feed that goes into the Airservices revenue branch, ATC is what creates and sustains that monetary feed.
So, if you were running a business, and 60% of your income came from one customer, and another 20% from overseas customers in your upper and oceanic airspace, where would your Boss (currently Catherine King) want you to concentrate your efforts?

As a CASA ATC inspector, I saw control towers falling apart, and control cabs no longer fit for purpose. I saw airport plans to build new control towers continuously knee-capped by Airservices, their reluctance to open new control towers at airports trying to get a foothold in the industry, and all efforts directed into making sure the primary customer (Qantas, and on their coat-tails, other airlines) was satisfied.

This, I believe, is not the job of a government agency. It should be operating a service for all Australians that combines defence of the airspace, with, in peacetime, an airspace system that protects fare paying passengers while expediting the nation's commerce and allowing recreational airspace users to also participate. In short, the airspace should be defended by the RAAF while Airservices expedites commerce and protects everyone paying a fare to travel. (Another new thread should anyone wish to pursue it)

The Australian Government should:
1. Change the Airservices model to not-for-profit. (if it makes too much in a given time period, the money is returned to industry, not to the federal government)
2. Insist that the RAAF defends Australian airspace, by establishing radar systems capable of detecting aircraft that are not declaring their presence in Australian airspace. (Currently, Airservices is decommissioning radar in favour of ADS-B, the RAAF, to the best of my knowledge only has one air defence radar, JORN)
3. Do this by having Airservices and the RAAF jointly monitor radar defence systems, instead of complacently assuming the Indonesians might tell us about "incoming" before they hit Darwin.
4. Change the airspace regulation process to accommodate the above (the current top-down approach) to allow ambitious airports to apply for local airspace categorisations and employ their own air traffic controllers to administer that airspace. (This is a bottom-up approach)
5. This will require minor changes to CASR Parts 172 and 171 (if radars are to be used) and to the airspace act and regulations. (PS. None of this is new, it takes some of the characteristics of the US and UK airspace models and plants them into an Australian context)

A few other things would need to be modified, but if we do not start with some fundamental changes, the 1950s system we have now will never change.

For those interested - HERE - is GF's LinkedIn CV that clearly highlights his credentials to speak as a ATM SME. 

MTF...P2