ACAG/CAA Joint Meeting MINUTES Minutes of the 5th Joint Meeting of the CAA and ACAG, held Tuesday 13 February 2007, Miramar Links Conference Centre, Wellington Airport. Meeting opened 1310hrs. Present ACAG: Brian Whelan, Chris Chapman, Errol Burtenshaw, Peter Houghton, John Pearce, Mike Groome, Paul Drake, Craig Oliver, John Funnell, Bob Henderson, Praveen Singh CAA: Steve Douglas, Andy Slater, John Lanham, Tim Allen, Mark Hingston (in place of Graeme Harris), Russell Kilvington (from end of section 5 of the agenda), and Lisa Farrelly (Scribe) Observer: Nick Taylor (MoT) 1 Welcome Steve Douglas welcomed all to the 5 th joint meeting of ACAG and CAA. 2 Apologies Graeme Harris, Hugh Faris 3 Minutes of Previous Meeting Update on the action points recorded in the Minutes of the previous meeting was as follows: MPL: Andy Slater has spoken with John McKinley regarding MPL. It was established that MPL would require further assessment by the PLAS Group to determine when/if the issue would need to be considered again as a rule amendment. ATS Stage 2: Andy Slater explained that as yet there is not a defined project or issue which would allow the commencement of work on development of policy. Signed Rules Contract 2006/7: Andy Slater reported that the 2006/7 contract remained unsigned but signing is now expected to occur in the next few weeks. The Minutes of the 4th joint meeting held 22 November 2006, were reviewed and agreed. 4 2007/2008 Rules Programme 4.1 Review proposed rule projects The schedule of rule project briefs under consideration for a place on the 2007/2008 Rules Programme was distributed to ACAG prior to the meeting. The schedule lists 13 potential rule projects for consideration. 1
4.2 Review of initial priorities for proposed rule projects The reasoning for a `High prioritisation of ICAO projects on the schedule was clarified for ACAG. The CAA is committed to its Action Plan submitted to ICAO which acknowledges the recent findings of the ICAO Safety Oversight Audit. As an ICAO Contracting State New Zealand is obliged to comply with ICAO Standards, unless there is a valid reason why it should not do so. Civil Aviation Rules need to be updated in a number of areas to reflect ICAO Standards. ACAG asked John Lanham and Tim Allen for their view of the remaining rules issues (other than the ICAO issues), to which the meeting heard that Part 137 was clearly a priority. Resolution of GNSS and Part 139 issues was also considered important although it was commented that further research and analysis work may be required for these two issues before they are ready for the rules programme. An ACAG member suggested that in addressing Part 137 issues there would also be a need outside of this rule project, to address the attitudes of some Operators in order to achieve further improvement in the area of safety. Aviation English Testing was highlighted as an issue requiring attention in the near future. The CAA is currently scoping alternative means of compliance to meet the ICAO Standard which comes into effect March 2008. Also noted is that Airways is working in consultation with the CAA toward implementing processes to meet the March 2008 effective date. Some members of ACAG expressed a desire to see the Recreational Pilots Licence on the 2007/8 rules programme. It was noted that this issue would not contribute to safety outcomes but that there had been a large amount of time and effort applied by CAA & Industry to the development of policy to support a rule amendment. An ACAG member suggested that Part 91 issues require assessment on a semi-regular basis because of the number of issues that are regularly raised within this rule part. CAA suggested that in order to establish a well defined project for Part 91 amendments, it would be beneficial to meet at some stage with wider industry. The Traffic Noise and Abatement issue was viewed by the same ACAG member as having a relatively high priority. He suggested that if this issue was not addressed in the near future local authorities may, if given sufficient time, write their own rules with regard to traffic noise at airports and this will most likely have a negative impact for airports. 4.3 Matters to be taken into account The meeting heard that some issues on the schedule, such as Part 139 and GNSS, would require substantial amounts of work to be undertaken to identify and prioritise the issues prior to any rule project work being commenced. It was explained to the meeting that Part 172 was not on the current schedule because it would first require an Issue Assessment Group as per the Rules Development process. CAA informed the meeting of the likely number of new projects for the 2007/8 Rules Programme, explaining that there would probably be a maximum of 4 new projects, with the finalised number being determined by the outcome of the latest recruitment campaign for 2
Rules Project Specialists and the status of projects on the current programme nearing completion. 4.4 Prioritisation of projects under consideration for 2007/8 The CAA is working toward delivering a draft 2007/2008 Rules Programme to the MoT by the end of March 2007. It was agreed that once CAA have reviewed the draft Schedule of Rule Project Briefs any further updates will be emailed to ACAG for review and comment. It was suggested by CAA that further prioritisation communications between CAA & ACAG could continue via email, or if considered necessary another meeting would be held. ACAG asked that the template used for scheduling priority issues for consideration for a rules programme be consistent in format and designed in such a way that it is easy to compare changes in the schedule from year to year. 5 Update and Review 5.1 Rule Development Process review of operation ACAG reiterated their desire to receive supporting documentation for joint meetings of CAA & ACAG within the 10 day timeline as mentioned in ACAG Meeting Terms of Reference. ACAG is interested to see something developed by the CAA which will define the phases within each rule project and indicate the achievement or otherwise in completing those phases. The development of policy in supporting some rule amendments, and how a determination for policy input is made, was again raised by ACAG for clarification. The CAA was able to report that policy input to rules can be determined via several avenues, clarifying that an Issue Assessment Group was just one avenue for making this determination. One ACAG member queried how projects already on the Rules Programme were prioritised for completion. It was explained that a flexible approach is taken by CAA because there can be a number of situations which determine priorities of a project. CAA suggested that ACAG read the monthly rules report (compiled for the MoT and also published in the Civil Aviation Rules Register - CARRIL) as a means of tracking progress on current projects and to also use the CAA & ACAG joint meetings as an opportunity to make known its views on the priority of projects within the programme. 5.2 2006/2007 Rules Programme The status report as at 31st January 2007 was distributed to ACAG prior to the meeting and the content summarised at the meeting. One member expressed interest in seeing the current EDTO NPRM completed and signed off by September 2007. He said that provided the EDTO NPRM aligns with the recent issue of the FAA ETOPS rule changes, this would open up the opportunity for Air NZ to achieve a 240 minutes ETOPS approval for the B777 around September 2007 following certification by Boeing. 3
5.3 Issue Assessment Groups CAA reported that the IAG for Part 137 Agricultural Operations was held on 23 January 2007, and all issues assessed at this meeting were agreed as requiring rule amendment. An ACAG representative commented that he considered rule amendments were not necessarily the best solution to these issues and that he considered that a change of culture was needed. Andy Slater confirmed that the need to change culture of sector participants was also expressed at the IAG. A Meeting Record for the Part 137 IAG is available on the CAA website. It was also noted that rule amendments were only seen as one part of assisting the sector to meet CAA social cost of accidents targets and the form of the changes may involve other measures/solutions, other than a rule amendment. An IAG for Part 125 Air Operations Medium Aeroplanes, is scheduled for 19 February 2007, in Wellington, and will look at issues raised by NZALPA. It is hoped to schedule a Part 139 IAG in late March 2007 to coincide with the Airports Association meeting to be held in Wellington, where AIA Airports division will be invited. CAA noted that the Airport Association had expressed interest in having a representative on ACAG. ACAG agreed to ensure that the Airports Association is made aware of future opportunities for membership of ACAG. 5.4 Project Working Groups No further activity to report. 5.5 Advisory Circulars No further activity to report. 5.6 Rules related Policy Projects The status of the current policy projects was discussed within earlier items on the agenda, where the meeting heard that the RPL policy was completed and published to the website; and the SMS Policy is being finalised for sign-off by the CAA Executive and would be published in due course. 5.7 TAIC/CAA accident findings and implementation It was clarified for ACAG that the findings arising from both TAIC and CAA accident investigations which propose a rules solution, are raised as a rules issue at the Trigger Phase of the Rules Development Process. 6 Director CAA 6.1 Agency CEO and Transport Secretary Meeting Report Russell Kilvington, Director of CAA, was introduced to the ACAG, and reported on related issues discussed at the Agency CEO and Transport Secretary Meeting, which included an agenda item on rules development across the Transport Sector. Russell also shared his view on the current CAA Rules development process. 4
7 General Business No further items Meeting closed at 1615hrs. 8 Next Meeting 25 June 2007, 1300 hours Miramar Links Conference Centre, Wellington 5