Aviation fee rises next year?

Press, 6 October 1987, Page 9

Aviation fee rises next year?

By

DAVE WILSON

New civil aviation licensing fees involving steep increases in the cost of pilots’ licences may not be introduced until next year. The aviation industry had feared the new fees, involving increases in some cases of 1000 per cent, would be implemented this month. The cost-recovery move by the Civil Aviation Division has drawn angry submissions 4<rom aero clubs and flying schools throughout

New Zealand. Among many fee proposals, the department wants to increase the cost of a student pilot’s licence from $l2 to $l3O while the fee for a private pilot’s licence could rise from the present $4B to $255. The Civil Aviation Division has received a considerable number of submissions on its proposed scale of fees, said the deputy director of the division, Mr Reg Roberts, yesterday. No fixeC'date

had been chosen to implement the fees. The proposed scale, issued for comment in September, was a “worst case scenario.” “The scale sets out the total cost recovery. It does not take into account the social cost and it is quite possible the final fees will vary from those already published.” Aviation sources said it was unlikely the new changes would be implemented until a group of

Swedish consultants, chosen to make a study of the Ministry of Transport’s civil aviation wing, had completed their report, which had a March, 1988, deadline. The Canterbury Aero Club had totally opposed the suggested fees, said its general manager, Mr Bruce Fulton. Private pilots and aero clubs were being asked to pay not only for the administrative costs in the division’s licensing of personnel but also for a share of the

division’s overheads. “It is bureaucracy gone mad when they propose to charge $l3O for a clerk to write out a student pilot’s licence. It is no different from writing a television or driver’s licence.” Mr Fulton said aero clubs wanted to know what '< proportion of the division’s overheads the industry was being asked to subsidise, and said it was timely for the cost structure of the division to be scrutinised, to ensure it was efficient. ~t'j