Posts about stuff relating to airports
Opening Up: What Surprises Lurk within your Aerodrome?
Depending on the nature of the COVID-19 outbreak in your area, aerodrome operations may have ground to a halt, barely hiccuped or maybe even increased. For those in the first category, that have struggled through intermittent and/or prolonged lockdowns, the end could be insight. But getting going again could be fraught with insidious risks.
Header image: Mateus Rauber (via Pexels)
Many Masters: CASA not the only Agency Responsible for Safety
Just a short post today* about a recent High Court of Australia decision on the topic of which safety agency should prosecute safety breaches involving an aviation organisation preparing for a flight. Quick answer: it could be an agency other than the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) depending on the circumstances of the breach.
* I don’t want to became an aviation law blog. Really, I don’t but I do enjoy ready this stuff.
Wrong, but not as Wrong: Wellington RESA “Final” Decision
Earlier in 2017, the New Zealand Court of Appeal reversed an even earlier court decision and found that the NZ Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Director had made an error in assessing the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) length requirement contain in Civil Aviation Rule Part 139 - I blogged about that decision here.
This week, the NZ Supreme Court handed down its judgement on the appeal made by the NZ CAA and Wellington Airport. Not a bad turnaround considered the length legal battles usually take.
And I guess, technically, the NZ CAA and Wellington International Airport Ltd (WIAL) lost. The appeal was dismissed and costs were awarded but the reasoning included in the judgement does provide the NZ CAA with at least a partial win.
Noun-based Regulation
The modern world is definitely in love with its noun-based activities. Each week, a paradigm-shifting approach to some human endeavour is announced with a title like value-based health care or outcome-based education. When I delve into the details, I am generally left either confused as to what they are selling or how they are different at all. Regulation is no different. Just plugging "based regulation" into Google yields, on the first page alone, principle-based, results-based, performance-based, outcomes-based and output-based regulatory approaches.
"Compliance Doesn't Equal Safety"
I've heard this saying quite a bit over the last few months and in at least one aspect, I agree with the statement. It tends to be true that regulations have failed to keep pace with industry. As such, blind compliance with the regulation no longer ensures an accident-free existence. So what is the solution?
Image: Tanathip Rattanatum