PILOT SHORTAGE

REGARDING the Qantas Wellcamp flight reductions:

Of course there is a pilot shortage. As a result of a succession of useless Federal Transport Ministers, irresponsible local councils and an out of control and unaccountable bureaucracy in the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, learning to fly has become an unpleasant, needlessly very expensive, business.

Council-owned airports are being run in the highest cost manner possible (see Toowoomba City Airport which now has several employees and a dedicated building for them and stupid landing and parking fees), CASA regulation has resulted in vastly increased costs to the industry, a succession of ministers has done nothing to prevent the near destruction of an industry and all this paid for by those wishing to learn to fly.

Nearly 25 years ago when my wife and I learned to fly at Toowoomba, there was a nice little picnic table with only a one metre high mesh fence separating that area from the refuelling area.

Parents would bring their children to watch the small aircraft being refuelled and sometimes could talk to the pilots.

Now this is impossible and the airport looks like a pretty good facsimile of a Second World War prison camp. This is not a friendly or welcoming atmosphere and hence recruitment into the pilot population has all but ceased. This in turn leads to far fewer would- be commercial pilots and hence a shortage of airline pilots.

Importing pilots from overseas will be difficult as the aviation industry in other parts of the world is doing well and overseas, Australia has an unenviable reputation as an aviation police state.

The remedy is to adopt the United States Federal Aviation Administration regulations which work, produce better safety outcomes and are far cheaper for participants.

MIKE BORGELT, Toowoomba East