Airservices focused on safety

Airservices Australia has continued to make significant investment in delivering a safer and more efficient national airways system, according to its recently released 2014–15 annual report.

The national air navigation services provider maintained service improvements through upgrades to infrastructure which allows airlines to reduce holding and have the freedom to choose their own preferred routes.

Acting Chief Executive Officer Jason Harfield said safety still remained a top priority, with over 90 million passengers on every airline flight in Australian airspace watched over by air traffic control 24 hours a day.

Delivery of the nation’s future civil-military air traffic control system, through the OneSKY Australia program, also began during 2014–15. Work has commenced on the design and build of the software system in partnership with the Department of Defence.

Safety at regional airports also saw significant improvements, including the introduction of new aviation rescue fire-fighting services at four additional airports as required by Australia’s safety regulations.

However, financial results for the year reflected a downturn in revenue by around $16 million.

“After 20 years of sustained air traffic growth, annual passenger numbers have increased by 50% as more Australians fly than ever before. The current flat environment highlights the need for Airservices to continue to transform and do things differently to the way we have worked in the past,” said Harfield.

“While we embarked on a cost-containment program in the past year, we know that we need to pursue significant transformation in order to be to able better adapt to changing industry dynamics, traffic volumes and customer priorities.”

The Airservices Annual Report 2014–15 is available here.  

Image courtesy of Ian Sutton under CC

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