White Paper needs to build consumer trust, say aviation insiders

Bennett signalled Virgin’s approval of several provisions, including the Aviation Industry Ombuds Scheme and Charter of Customer Rights, saying the carrier had believed the role of the Airline Customer Advocate needed to be strengthened.

“We’re really keen to see an outcome that restores community trust in the state of Australia’s aviation sector, that we can indeed continue to play this critical role in Australia’s way of life,” he said.

“This is such an important industry for Australia. We think the government has done a good job at navigating its way through a difficult set of issues.

“We’re going to engage constructively to bring to life the changes that help people have the confidence that they should have, and the safety that must be paramount, in the Australian aviation sector.”

McMillan, however, was more critical of the White Paper, saying it did not do enough on employee protections and strengthening the workforce.

“For us, the starting point is decent jobs: how do we ensure that there are full time, secure, well-paid, safe jobs in aviation to ensure that we can deliver the customer service that we’re all talking about here?” she said.

VIEW ALL

“That isn’t being delivered. At the moment, we want profitable, healthy employees. Without that, there aren’t decent jobs – so at the moment, just don’t think the balance provides that.”

McMillan pointed to some recent positive steps such as closing loopholes and movement towards multi-employer bargaining, but said there was more work to be done.

“There’s elements to start bringing up pay and conditions, but at the rate we’re going, it’s going to take a long, long time to do that,” she said.

“I don’t think it’s enough to say we can look at all these elements without looking at ongoing industrial relations reform, which is why we’ve consistently been calling out to the government and industry to say we want a Safe and Secure Skies Commission where we can actually look at the genuine issue of labour conditions in aviation and how we can have better protections.”

Drones and advanced air mobility were another area of discussion, with Suskin saying government and the drone industry need to work together on addressing privacy and security concerns to build up “social licence” for the sector.

“It’s fair enough, this is a new technology. I think it’s important for industry to describe why we are safe. I think it’s important for the safety agencies to have a greater understanding of the technology so they can regulate us again at the same level they might other traditional modes of transportation or aviation,” he said.

“I do think, though, because it’s highly automated, it’s very digitised, there will be safety levels and standards in there that are pretty high.”

Suskin pointed to Remote ID – which will allow government to identify drones in the air and is expected to be in place by 2030 – as one way of building up that social licence.

“If people know where the drones are, it helps the security agencies know exactly where the drones are, who has registered that drone, who’s operating that drone,” he said.

“I think overall, these are good policy steps on the pathway to 2030, which is the timeline they get put out in the paper, where this will actually become more of a practical, actual and legislative reality.”