New Zealand pilots pinpoint where Civil Aviation Bill has let them down

Pilots wanted more from changes to NZ aviation law. Photo / 123RF

Pilots say new aviation law has fallen short of providing mandatory programmes to support crew.

They say some of their detailed submissions on the Civil Aviation Bill haven’t been taken up. Instead, it remains up to airlines to back pilot support programmes.

The law was touted by the Government as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the governance of aviation. However, the bill - which was formally signed into law this month - has been criticised by pilots, an industry group and Consumer NZ as having been watered down.

The New Zealand Air Line Pilots’ Association (NZALPA) also says reviews of cases where crew may be suffering from mental health or other issues remain with the Ministry of Transport, rather than being heard by an independent tribunal, as happens overseas.

The association’s medical and welfare director Dave Church said it had hoped to get what largely happens in practice written into law. The mental health of some pilots is in sharper focus after they suffered badly during the depths of the pandemic, when they faced losing their jobs, and again during the recovery, where the problem can be too much flying.

He said that during the past three years, more pilots had been facing mental health issues, but the association had structures in place to deal with such problems.

“We’ve put a considerable amount of effort into getting our Peer Assistance Network up and running, which is a very successful programme.”

The association had taken a tripartite approach in which pilots, the airlines and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) were all involved in getting stressed pilots back to work.

“Pilots are just humans - they face every challenge that any other person faces,” said Church.

In the past, a pilot’s mental health had always had implications for their licence to fly, and some were hesitant about reporting any problems, especially as CAA took what Church described as a narrow medical view that it was a disease with which pilots couldn’t go to work.

“We’ve made some huge strides,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of work done with the regulator, with the airlines and making sure that it’s not treated as a disease.”

For anyone needing help, the association’s peer support members step in first, and if necessary the case could be escalated to the next level, a CAA-approved psychologist.

“We’ve had a huge success rate in getting guys back to work without any implications for safety. We’re in a much better space now than we were, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” said Church.

He could not discuss the numbers of pilots involved, but they were small among a generally resilient workforce.

“But you have divorces, you have financial situations, and especially coming out of Covid,” he said.

“Guys have gone from job insecurity and the financial impacts of that, to a completely different set of challenges. We’re looking at roster demands, training, we’ve got unfamiliar operational staff we have to deal with and we’ve got grumpy passengers.”

There were lingering issues for those who flew international flights when borders were closed, after having been shut in hotel rooms overseas and ostracised by some in their community when they returned home.

“Sometimes, even schools didn’t want their kids to be dropped off by their dad because he’d been overseas, or couldn’t attend the dentist. One of the biggest stressors we had, I think, was that community ostracism.”

Church said the European Aviation Safety Agency and the British CAA had written into law the requirement for operators to have a pilot support programme.

Hundreds of planes were parked up and pilots faced an uncertain future when the pandemic hit. Photo / Getty Images

He said it was unfortunate the same wasn’t done here.

“In saying that, you know, the regulator does have a much better view on this subject than it has in the past and they are much more accommodating with regard to the subject.”

Pilots had pushed for an independent appeal panel to consider medical cases, and other industry groups had also argued for it in the case of regulatory disputes. But this didn’t make it into the New Zealand legislation, said Church.

“Currently it’s just a Ministry of Transport-appointed convener. And likewise, for an operator who has an issue, their only right of review is through the courts.”

Canada, England and some other countries had tribunals with three or four experts instead of using an “in-house’” process.

“We tried to get that in the bill, but it didn’t get through, unfortunately,” said Church.

Aviation NZ welcomed the update of the 1990 Civil Aviation Act, but said it could have gone further.

Chief executive John Nicholson said the old act was no longer fit for purpose. He was pleased to see the importance of “just culture” (no blame reporting) was more clearly articulated in the new legislation, as well as moves towards more risk-based regulation.

“However, the new act is more about updating the old act and updating penalties rather than adopting some world best-practice ideas, and creating the type of environment that will allow the industry to thrive.”

He said New Zealand had an opportunity, for example, to borrow world best-practice from the US Federal Aviation Administration, for companies entering and leaving the aviation system.

The New Zealand system allows for routine surveillance and spot audits, and CAA has the ability to manage operators.

“The need for five-yearly re-entry audits, which basically duplicates these provisions, is an unnecessary bureaucratic expense for industry, and it absorbs CAA resources which could be better spent on essential work.”

Nicholson said New Zealand had adopted the British practice of performance-based regulation, but not picked up the accompanying practice of cost-benefit analysis.

“We need safety at a reasonable cost, not safety at any cost. In New Zealand, we have cherry-picked without properly understanding the merits of the complete British approach.”

He said an independent appeal authority would save the industry, the CAA and the court system considerable sums of money.

Two recent cases had cost the industry more than $100,000 each to challenge.