Tourists’ bad drone behaviour
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says overseas visitors are some of the worst-behaved drone users and they are considering installing in-flight safety videos to combat the problem.
Speaking to a transport and infrastructure select committee yesterday, deputy chief executive John Kay told MPs that getting the message out to drone users about the laws governing them was tough, as the typical drone user did not access the same media or go through the same training as pilots did.
Among the solutions the CAA was considering was an in-flight video for arriving tourists, which its staff were in talks with Air New Zealand about, as well as providing advertisements in Auckland Airport’s arrivals area.
The association was also considering drone registrations.
Kay couldn’t put a number on foreign tourists using drones but said some of them were ‘‘breathtakingly ignorant’’ of the rules governing their use.
‘‘What we do know is some of the more problematic uses we’ve seen – for example, around the glaciers down south and heliports – have been largely foreign tourists who brought their drones in and have been extremely ignorant of the safety requirements,’’ Kay said.
‘‘Our view is if that is a safety risk, irrespective of the numbers, then it is appropriate for us to find some way to make them aware of what good practice is, what safe use is in the New Zealand context.’’
Kay could not immediately say how many of the serious incidents the CAA had noted in its submission were caused by foreign tourists.
He said that it was natural for tourists to pick up a drone at duty free and want to photograph New Zealand’s ‘‘intrinsic natural beauty’’.
MPs had called the CAA in for a briefing on drone safety after a series of close calls between drones and commercial aircraft.
Communication was one of the key problems the CAA ran into around drones.
They were in the process of setting up signage near airports to make sure drone users knew it was illegal to fly within four kilometres of one.
Based on Colmar Brunton polling, the authority believed there were around 280,000 drone users in New Zealand. On average, they were male, between the ages of 25 and 50, and relatively highly educated.
‘‘The operators of drones are typically not traditional aviators, they didn’t go through piloting school,’’ Kay said.
Over the past five years, there have been just 29 prosecutions over drone use.
One possible response was geoblocking technology, which would simply block off certain areas from drone usage.