THE Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has reassured rural and regional communities it is not moving to close down community service flights such as Angel Flight.
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It comes after Angel Flight, an organisation that uses volunteer pilots to provide air transport for rural and regional people to access medical care in larger centres, raised concerns it could be grounded by unworkable and expensive red tape imposed by the aviation watchdog.
"CASA is looking at imposing an additional regulatory layer of bureaucracy on Angel Flight, with the charity required to be responsible for pilot training and licences, aircraft certification and maintenance checks, not to mention a possibly unattainable burden of insurance," the charity said in a statement.
Angel Flight founder and CEO Bill Bristow said CASA in 2003 gave the charity it's "blessing" in written approval to start operations but was now seeking to impose new rules to "regulate" Angel Flight in the future. He said flights co-ordinated by Angel Flight were no different to private general aviation flights in Australia.
"All of our 2700 volunteer pilots who generously give their time to assist struggling families must adhere to the rules and regulations already imposed and rigorously controlled by CASA," Mr Bristow said.
"When we first heard about CASA proposing regulatory changes, I presented our grave concerns to Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss's chief of staff David Whitrow in March this year. However, it seems that those concerns have fallen on deaf ears."
He said he was worried the cost of complying with "onerous federal regulations" would financially cripple Angel Flight.
CASA rejected suggestions it was planning to impose crippling red tape, saying all it had done was start a discussion about aviation safety issues relating to community service flights.
A discussion paper on options for safety standards had been released for public comment so the public could understand them and consider whether there might be ways of managing safety more effectively, CASA said.
It said at the moment community service flights were considered to be private flights and pilots had varying levels of qualifications and experience and the aircraft involved differed in size, power and sophistication.
"If any changes to the safety standards covering community service flights are proposed in the future there would be further and comprehensive consultation before any action was taken," a CASA spokesperson said.
