Skybus plans set back by Minister’s ruling

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 1

Skybus plans set back by Minister’s ruling

By

LES BLOXHAM

travel editor

Skybus is facing further delays in getting its long-awaited cutprice airline off the ground.

Legal advice received by the Government yesterday that the proposed new service “appears to be in breach of the law” has prompted the Minister of Immigration (Mr Malcolm) to refuse work permits for the British crew of the chartered Viscount. This means, they will not be able to fly the aircraft “for hire or reward,” a decision which will probably prevent the scheduled flights from starting as planned next week. Skybus has been trying for a year- to ' get airborne through a loophole in the Air Services Licensing Act which grants aero clubs an exemption to carry members on charter flights without a licence. Skybus’s parent body, the Aqua Avia Society, grafted itself to the tiny one-Cessna Piako Aero Club with the intention of exploiting the act’s exemption to fly its 70seat Viscount on scheduled services as an aero club operation. The society maintains that through its membership of the Piako club, its 40,000 members therefore are also .'club members. Section 14 of the act, under .'which the exemption is granted, is explicit. It says that aero clubs can only carry passengers who “are members of the club with full rights of membership.” . Aqua Avia members do not enjoy the “full rights” of membership of the Piako Aero Club. They cannot, for instance, vote and are not entitled to concessions and facilities offered to club members by other aero clubs affiliated, like Piako, to the Royal New Zealand Aero Club. It is believed that yesterday's legal ruling is based on that issue. “As Minister of Immigration I am not prepared to issue work permits for an activity which appears to be in breach of the law,” said Mr Malcolm. “I have no option therefore but to refuse work permits to the crew for the purpose of flying scheduled air services. “Skybus has always had, and still does have, the option to do what every other air transport operator does and that is to apply to the Air Services Licensing Authority for a licence. For its own reasons Skybus has chosen not to follow that course of action.

“I would very much like to help the thousands of genuine supporters and subscribers of Skybus, but I could only issue work permits to the crew if I were prepared to knowingly, and against the best legal advice, condone what appears to be a breach of the law. Clearly no responsible Minister of the Crown can do that.. “Skybus appears to have reached checkmate unless it now applies for an Air Service Licence. This is the course of action that has been consistently recommended to it, is clearly set out in the law, and is followed by every other commercial airline in New Zealand,” he said. Mr Malcolm said the air service certificate issued for the Viscount on Monday had been promoted to the public by the society as a clearance for an air passenger service. “That is an entirely false position,” he said. “What in fact happened was that an existing certificate in the. name of the Piako Aero Club was amended so as to clear, in air-safety, terms only, the operation within New Zealand of that Viscount aircraft. The question of the safety ,of an aircraft in terms of the Civil Aviation Act is an entirely separate issue to the operation of an air service under the Air Service Licensing Act.” It is considered unlikely that the crew will attempt to fly the scheduled services without a work permit. Even if a New Zealand crew were available with current ratings on a Viscount, the flights would probably not get off the ground until the legal situation was clarified by the Courts. The Viscount, which is costing the society $BOOO a day whether it flies or not, would probably be refused clearances by Air Traffic Control, which is under the Ministry of Transport. A conviction for breaching the Air Services Licensing Act carries a maximum fine of $2OO plus an additional fine “not exceeding $2O for every day on which the service is carried on.” Other bombshells to hit Aqua Avia yesterday were the resignations of its general manager and board member, Mr Richard Lynch, and its sales director, Mrs Jill Grbic.

Sir Reginald Barnewall, the society’s chairman, would not comment last evening. He is expected to make a statement today. After taking legal advice, the society decided to proceed with today’s inaugural flights, but passengers will be carried free of charge. The British pilot who flew the Viscount to New Zealand, Captain M. A. Watts, said that the crew did not want to quarrel with the Minister. They accepted his decision in principle. The crew had had their

work permit applications in for three months and he believed that the Minister was unaware of that fact. “We will be pressing on tomorrow to try to sort things out as quickly as possible,” he said. “We just hope we can satisfy the Minister so that the flights can go ahead. According to informed sources, the applications for work permits could not be processed until the conditions under which the . crew were planning to work had been finalised. This information, which included the society’s relationship to the aero club, was not filed until last month.