Schutt Flying Academy (Australia) Pty Ltd and Anor and Civil Aviation Safety Authority - [2002] AATA 1151

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2002] AATA 1151

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL Nº V2002/382

Nº V2002/383

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION

Re:            SCHUTT FLYING ACADEMY
  (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD
First Applicant
  STANISLAS VAN DE WIEL

Second Applicant

And: CIVIL AVIATION SAFETY
AUTHORITY

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal:       Mr B.H. Pascoe, Senior Member
  Air Marshal B. Gration, Member
Date:             8 November 2002
Place:            Melbourne

Decision:The Tribunal sets aside the decisions under review and in their stead suspends the authorisation contained in the Air Operator's Certificate of the first applicant for the conduct of charter operations other than those described as joy flights until 8 November 2002 and suspends the approval of the second applicant as chief pilot of the first applicant until 8 November 2002.

(sgd) B.H. Pascoe
Senior MemberCIVIL AVIATION – cancellation of Air Operator's Certificate – cancellation of approval of chief pilot – whether conduct of regular public transport – whether in breach of regulations – whether travel agent acted as agent of operator – whether cancellation appropriate
Civil Aviation Act 1988

REASONS FOR DECISION

8 November 2002 Mr B.H. Pascoe, Senior Member
Air Marshal B. Gration, Member

These are applications for the review of two decisions of the respondent, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). The first decision, dated 16 April 2002, was to cancel the Air Operator's Certificate (AOC) held by the first applicant, Schutt Flying Academy (Australia) Pty Ltd (SFA) pursuant to s.28BA of the Civil Aviation Act 1988 (the Act). The second decision on the same date was to cancel the Chief Pilot approval of the second applicant, Mr Stanislas Van De Wiel, pursuant to subsection 6.1 of Appendix 1 to s.82.0 of the Civil Aviation Orders (the Orders). The reasons given by CASA for both decisions were the same and, by consent, the applications were heard together.
At the hearing the applicants were represented by Mr Van De Wiel and the respondent by Mr I. Harvey, of counsel. Evidence was given by Mr Van De Wiel and three employees of CASA, Mr M. Anderson, Mr M. Scorer and Mr J. Botham. In addition to the documents provided by the respondent pursuant to s.37 of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act1975, numerous documents were tendered by both parties. The documents which are relevant to our decision will be referred to in the course of these reasons.
In the decisions of CASA, it was alleged that SFA had, on a number of occasions, not complied with the Act in that it had conducted Regular Public Transport (RPT) operations without authority and had failed to ensure that aircraft were operated by SFA within Australia only as authorised by its AOC. The approval of Mr Van De Wiel as Chief Pilot was cancelled on the grounds that he had failed to take all reasonable steps to ensure that only operations permitted by the AOC were conducted.
Under the terms of its AOC, SFA was authorised to conduct charter operations and aerial work operations of a kind set out in the Schedule in a class of aircraft specified. The aerial work operations authorised were aerial survey – pipeline inspection, powerline inspection, banner towing and flying training conducted at SFA's flying school at Moorabbin aerodrome.
The history of this matter and the hearing of the applications were complicated by the fact that relations between CASA and Mr Van De Wiel had been somewhat strained in recent years. Mr Van De Wiel had been openly critical of the role of CASA in relation to several air safety issues. In the hearing, he had some difficulty in not straying into some of these past issues, which were not directly relevant to the matter before the Tribunal. During the hearing, Mr Van De Wiel was critical of CASA in showing the cancellation on its website, with notice of the stay order granted by the Tribunal only on a subsidiary page. On application immediately after the notice of cancellation, a stay order was granted on 3 May 2002. The cancellation of approval of Mr Van De Wiel was stayed until the earlier of 31 May 2002 or the approval of another chief pilot. The cancellation of the AOC was stayed with respect to aerial work operations and to charter operations described as joy flights only until the determination of the application.
SFA is a company owned and controlled by Mr Van De Wiel. Prior to October 2001, it occupied premises at 3 First Avenue, Moorabbin Airport. Another company, Schutt Air Services Pty Ltd (SAS) operates from 71 Northern Avenue, Moorabbin Airport as a fixed base operator providing services to third parties and operating a departure lounge and aircraft parking facilities. In May 2000, Small World Travel Pty Ltd (SWT), an independent registered travel agency, leased space from SAS. Mr Van De Wiel said that, following the demise of Island Airlines Pty Ltd, SWT approached SFA to conduct charter flights to meet a demand for flights to Flinders Island. Evidence was provided which showed that SWT advertised regular flight times and fares between Moorabbin, Flinders Island and Launceston. Flights were conducted by aircraft operated by SFA commencing in September 2000.
In September 2000, Mr Van De Wiel and his co-director of SAS, Mr M. Grant, met with Mr J. Botham and Mr M. Anderson of CASA to discuss the concerns of CASA about the basis of the arrangement, and the possibility that SFA was conducting RPT not authorised by its AOC. On 20 September 2000, Mr Botham wrote to Mr Van De Wiel stating that …The arrangements that you described to us appeared to fall under the charter purposes section of CAR 206(1)(b). However, the letter sought written details of the arrangement and drew attention to CAR 206(1)(b) and (c), and that whether an operation was charter or RPT depended on whether seats on aircraft were available to persons generally and whether the operator fixed times and terminals. It is clear from the evidence that CASA accepted the arrangements between SWT and SFA as closed charters and within the AOC of SFA.
In January 2001, a company, Aviatour Pty Ltd, was purchased. Mr Van De Wiel said that it was purchased by SAS, although no evidence was provided as to shareholding. The two directors were Mr Van De Wiel and Mr Grant. In March 2001, a new company, Region Air Express Pty Ltd, was formed with the shareholding owned by entities associated with Mr Van De Wiel and Mr Grant and those two as directors. It applied to CASA for an RPT-AOC. This application was never finalised by CASA other than, in November 2001, the company was advised that CASA was unable to proceed with the application due to the unsuitability of directors.
Mr Van De Wiel said that, in July 2001, SWT decided to vacate the premises at Moorabbin due to insufficient local business and to move the travel agency to another location. He said that SWT offered to transfer its Bass Strait portfolio of business to Aviatour Pty Ltd, trading as RegionAir Travel. The offer was accepted and some former SWT staff members were employed by RegionAir Travel. From September 2001, RegionAir Travel commenced advertising the same schedules and fares formerly provided by SWT using aircraft operated by SFA. Mr Van De Wiel maintained that aircraft were chartered by RegionAir Travel from other operators also but there was no corroborating evidence of this.
In September 2001, Mr Van De Wiel attended a meeting with Mr Botham and Mr Anderson at their request to discuss the new arrangements. Following this meeting, a letter dated 26 September 2001 was sent to Mr Van De Wiel by Mr Botham as follows:
…
Thank you for attending the meeting last week with Matthew Anderson and myself to discuss the charter operations by Schutt Flying Academy (Australia) Pty Ltd to and from Flinders Island.
We have received legal advice based on the information presently available to us that your operation is in fact an RPT operation. [Not sure that we can be so definite but if we're not the rest of the letter is weakened] This is based on CASA's opinion that the relationship between Schutt and Regionair Travel is no longer at arms length unlike the previous arrangement with Small World Travel.
As Schutt Flying Academy (Australia) Pty Ltd does not have RPT listed as a permitted operation on its AOC, I would ask you to cease the operation immediately, otherwise we will be forced to consider further action.

Mr Botham acknowledged in his evidence that the words in parenthesis had not been intended to be included in the letter. He had sent a draft to CASA's legal counsel who had written the words on the draft and they were inadvertently included in the letter sent. In a response by Mr Van De Wiel of 4 October 2001, he stated that his legal advice was that SFA was operating within its AOC and that the arrangements with RegionAir Travel were no different to those previously approved with SWT. Mr Van De Wiel stated that, to show good faith, he had resigned as a director of Aviatour Pty Ltd. Apparently, he was replaced as a director by his son. Mr Van De Wiel said that, due to the persistent insistence of CASA, SFA ceased all Bass Strait charter flights on 4 November 2001.

On 26 November 2001, CASA sent letters to SFA and Mr Van De Wiel requiring them to show cause why the AOC and chief pilot approval should not be cancelled. The letters summarised the concerns of CASA as:
…
The facts outlined above indicate that Aviatour Pty Ltd trading as Regionair Travel is not operating as a genuine travel agent at arms length from the Company, and that it is merely an arrangement of convenience that has been put in place in an effort to circumvent the requirement to hold an AOC authorising regular public transport operations. The pattern of flights since the Company's arrangement with Small World Travel ceased indicates that flights to and from fixed terminals on fixed schedules over specific routes are being conducted. These appear to be available for a fee for persons generally. These amount to unauthorised regular public transport operations.

After an exchange of correspondence between the parties, a conference was held on 15 January 2002. On 16 April 2002, the notices of cancellation of the AOC and chief pilot approval were sent by CASA.

In cross-examination, an advertisement by SFA in the magazine Learning to Fly of November 1999 was put to Mr Van De Wiel. The advertisement included the names Schutt Aviation and RegionAir Express and, after reference to training courses, the words, Schutt operates its own Regional Airline appeared. Mr Van De Wiel denied that it was intended to imply that SFA conducted an RPT operation. An article in the magazine Coast & Country of Autumn 2001 was also put to Mr Van De Wiel. This article discussed the plans to launch RegionAir as a regular public transport operator and included a map of RegionAir Routes & Destinations and a RegionAir Winter Timetable between Moorabbin, Flinders Island and Launceston. Mr Van De Wiel said that he disagreed with some matters in the article, particularly the implication of RPT services being carried on rather than being prospective and dependent on the RPT licence being granted to RegionAir Express Pty Ltd. He was unable to comment on a statement made by him in a letter of 25 September 2000 to the Australian General Manager of Lauda Air seeking an industry discount on a return flight to Amsterdam which said:
…the Schutt Aviation Group operates amongst others an RPT service from Victoria to Tasmania and Intrastate in Tasmania. We operate under the IATA designator D.G. as Island Airlines and RegionAir.

He could only assume that this referred to a short period when SAS ran the operations of Island Airlines Pty Ltd on behalf of the Administrator of the company. Mr Van De Wiel acknowledged that, in an affidavit filed in relation to these proceedings, he stated:

…
On 1 September 2001 Small World Travel International Pty Ltd left the Schutt premises, and Aviatour Pty Ltd trading as RegionAir Travel commenced operating from that premises, chartering aircraft from Schutt, and selling tickets to the general public.

He acknowledged, also, that there was no documentary evidence of the charters between SFA and RegionAir for charter between 1 September and 30 November 2001. Mr Van De Wiel acknowledged that his daughter acted as bookkeeper for both companies and he assumed that she would have arranged payment from RegionAir and banking to SFA.

It was put to Mr Van De Wiel that he had provided incorrect and misleading information in his application for chief pilot approval. The application stated that he held an ATPL NL08097, assumed to be an Air Transport Pilot Licence (ATPL) issued in the Netherlands, whereas the Civil Aviation Authority of the Netherlands had advised CASA that only a commercial pilot licence was held. Mr Van De Wiel said that he had qualified for an ATPL but, under the Netherlands system, it was frozen. He accepted that his statement in relation to this was incomplete and may have been misleading. Also in his application, Mr Van De Wiel stated that, from 1979 to 1983, he had been an instructor at KLM Flying School and, between 1984 and 1992, manager of KLM Flying School in the Netherlands and the United States of America. KLM had advised CASA that Mr Van De Wiel was unknown in its administration. Mr Van De Wiel acknowledged that he had never been employed by KLM but said that, during his time there, the flying school was used, but not owned, by KLM. Subsequently, it had been acquired by KLM and he had used that name as being more readily recognised than the former name of the school.
Mr Anderson is employed by CASA as Team Leader, Flying Operations, Victoria/Tasmania Area Office. He said that, since the meeting held with Mr Van De Wiel in September 2000, there had been concerns of a possible RPT operation involving SFA with the apparent regular service with a published timetable and fare schedules, and tickets being sold to individuals. He said that, with the change from SWT to RegionAir in September 2001, the view was taken that the parties were not at arm's length, it was SFA effectively operating an RPT and SFA should be advised to cease. Mr Anderson said that it was his understanding that the Bass Strait operations ceased in November only because of financial difficulties and a proposed withdrawal of Carriers Liability Insurance. He said that an RPT licence required a higher level of experience, training and checks of pilots, a higher maintenance standard and documented survey and departure procedures than that of a charter operator. Mr Anderson said that, with the limited resources of CASA, it needed to have confidence in the key personnel of an AOC holder, particularly the chief pilot, and there was no longer the required degree of confidence in Mr Van De Wiel. Mr Anderson denied that there had been any undue delay in processing the application by RegionAir Express Pty Ltd for an RPT-AOC. He said that the delay had been caused by difficulties in the company nominating a suitable chief pilot. He denied the suggestion put by Mr Van De Wiel that he had said, in January 2001, that such an application could be processed within six to eight weeks. He said that such a time frame was not possible. Mr Anderson accepted that some flights on behalf of RegionAir may have been operated by another operator such as Horizon Airlines.
Mr Botham is the Area Manager for Victoria and Tasmania for CASA. He acknowledged that, after the meeting with Mr Van De Wiel in September 2000, it had been agreed that the arrangements between SWT and SFA did not represent an RPT operation by SFA. He said that this was because of the assurances given by SFA and the independence of SWT. However, he believed that the non-arm's length relationship with RegionAir and the publication of a timetable and fare structure indicated that an RPT operation was being conducted by SFA in contravention of its AOC.
Mr Scorer is a Senior Airworthiness Inspector with CASA. He conducted a risk-based audit on two aircraft operated by SFA on 13 August 2002. As a result of the inspection, he issued seven Aircraft Survey Reports relating to:
(a)possible unserviceable pilot lap belts and shoulder straps;
(b)possible cabin door hinges not of the correct approved type,
(c)unapproved modification of rear windows,
(d)no fuel calibration card installed adjacent to fuel gauges,
(e)radio squelch control knob not secured,
(f)excess play in pilot's seat frame mechanism.

Items (b), (d) and (f) were marked as Code A requiring maintenance to be carried out prior to further flight. Item (c) required that no passengers were to be carried in the rear seat of the aircraft until the matter was rectified. Mr Van De Wiel said that the fuel calibration card was not missing but had been on a sidewall and covered by an old flight plan. Mr Scorer maintained that he had made a thorough search and neither he nor Mr Hickcox, who was responsible for maintenance of SFA aircraft, had been able to locate the card. There was criticism from both sides in relation to this audit. CASA personnel were critical of Mr Van De Wiel for postponing the audit and not being readily available, and Mr Van De Wiel was critical of CASA for not reporting directly to him of the results of the audit and grounding an aircraft unnecessarily. In our view, the audit and its results are peripheral to the main issue in this case. We do not see the results as seriously indicating lapses of safety requirements. We accept the evidence of Mr Van De Wiel that any perceived defects in aircraft were promptly checked and attended to.

It was submitted for CASA that the arrangement which operated between SWT and SFA between September 2000 and September 2001 was a device or stratagem which sought to circumvent the regulations by making the regular passenger flights appear to be a charter operation, rather than an RPT. It was said that, while the arrangement had been accepted by CASA, it had not been made aware of the advertising and promotion of fares and regular schedules. It was submitted that advertisements and terminal signage frequently used the term Schutt Aviation that was said to be a generic description, including SFA, SAS, Aviatour Pty Ltd and RegionAir. It was argued that there was no arm's length arrangement between SFA and RegionAir from September 2001 and that RegionAir acted solely as agent for SFA in selling tickets to the public. That arrangement was said to be a sham arrangement with common control and administration of the two companies resulting in the reality of SFA operating an RPT service in breach of its AOC. Mr Harvey was critical of Mr Van De Wiel being both managing director and chief pilot of SFA and suggested that an inherent tension existed between the two positions. He maintained that false statements were deliberately made in the application for chief pilot approval and that Mr Van De Wiel lacked the necessary judgement, discipline and rigour to so act. It was said that, in his capacity as chief pilot, Mr Van De Wiel was responsible for SFA adhering to the regulations and had both failed to do so and actively established the alleged sham arrangement.
Mr Van De Wiel maintained that he had been open with CASA and had sought advice while being critical of its performance in relation to air safety. He said that he had relied on his legal advice which had said that the arrangements were within the regulations, that the arrangement with SWT had been approved by CASA and that RegionAir simply inherited the timetables and fares of SWT and continued to operate in the same way. He submitted that SFA and RegionAir were separate legal entities. Mr Van De Wiel said that, as the sentence in parenthesis in the letter from Mr Botham of 26 September 2001 clearly indicated that CASA was uncertain as to the correct interpretation, he consulted his own legal advisors. Mr Van De Wiel referred to two other operators in central and northern Australia who appeared to be conducting operations similar to those of SFA which had been criticised. He accepted that the references to alleged false statements in his application for chief pilot approval may be regarded as gilding the lily but maintained that they were not deliberate falsehoods. He maintained that the letter to Lauda Air and articles in magazines were composed or arranged by a public relations consultant, Mr Wise, and were not deliberate mis-statements by him.

The relevant regulation in Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 is regulation 206. The relevant provisions are:
206(1) For the purposes of subsection 27(a) of the Act, the following commercial purposes are prescribed:
(a)aerial work purposes …
(b)charter purposes, being purposes of the following kinds:
(i)the carriage of passengers or cargo for hire or reward to or from any place, other than carriage in accordance with fixed schedules to and from fixed terminals or carriage for an operation mentioned in subregulation 262AM(7) or under a permission to fly in force under subregulation 317(1);
(ii)the carriage, in accordance with fixed schedules to and from fixed terminals, of passengers or cargo or passengers and cargo in circumstances in which the accommodation in the aircraft is not available for use by persons generally;
(c)the purpose of transporting persons generally, or transporting cargo for persons generally, for hire or reward in accordance with fixed schedules to and from fixed terminals over specific routes with or without intermediate stopping places between terminals.

Section 283A(3) of the Act provides:

…
if a condition of an AOC is breached, CASA may, by written notice given to its holder, suspend or cancel:
(a)the AOC; or
(b)any specified authorisation contained in the AOC;

whether or not the breach is continuing.

The crucial issue in these applications is whether it can be said that SFA operated aircraft in circumstances in which accommodation in the aircraft was available for use by persons generally. It is clear that operating with fixed schedules to and from fixed terminals can be common to both closed charter operations and RPT. In the Commission of Inquiry into the Relations between the CAA and Seaview Air, the Commissioner, Mr J.H. Staunton, ao, cbe, qc, reported on the allegations that Seaview Air was conducting an unauthorised RPT service. There the circumstances were somewhat akin to those of this case. One fundamental difference, however, was that the manager of Seaview Air dealt directly with guests of friends and relatives, guest houses on Lord Howe Island, their clients and directly with the population of Norfolk Island. All seats on the aircraft were not sold by the travel agent. The Commissioner found that (at para 20.43) …The substance was the Fastbook Travel did not charter the aircraft. Rather, it purchased seats on Seaview Air aircraft, with Mr Green using other seats for his own passengers. In paragraph 20.13, the Commissioner said:
20.13 Assume Seaview Air had advertised package holidays to Lord Howe Island, and sold packages to individuals, which included a seat upon a Seaview Air aircraft; the package plainly would involve the transportation of people generally. Assume, alternatively, that there was not an arms-length relationship between Seaview Air and the travel agency responsible for advertising to the public. Invitations by the agency, in such circumstances, may be characterised as having been made by Seaview Air, through its agent, in respect of a package which involved the transportation of persons generally.

In this case there is no evidence of any direct sale of seats by SFA in its own right. However, it can be said that the arrangement between SFA and RegionAir was very much akin to the alternative assumption of Mr Staunton at paragraph 20.13 above.

In a memorandum of 19 February 1999, sent to CASA's legal counsel by the senior legal counsel, Mr P. Fenton-Menzies, advice was given on the classification of operations between charter and RPT. The memorandum concluded with the following discussion in relation to interposed entities:
…
Interposed entities
Subject to the following paragraphs, if:

a third party enters into contracts for carriage with passengers; and
the third party contracts with an operator on an arm's length commercial basis to acquire exclusive rights in relation to all space on an aircraft (to "back to back" the third party's actual or prospective contractual obligations to passengers); and
the third party and the operator are not related,
accommodation on the aircraft should not be regarded as being available to persons generally – even if persons generally are able to contract with the third party. The same applies to the carriage of cargo. In most cases the interposed entity will determine schedules and routes, and in these circumstances the flights conducted by the operator will not be flights in accordance with fixed schedules to and from fixed terminals.
Clearly, however, this is not the case if the third party is merely acting as an agent of the operator. Actions of an agent of the operator are to be treated as actions of the operator.
If the third party and the operator are:
closely related (for example, related in a Corporations Law sense); or
are not dealing with each other on an arm's length commercial basis,
the activities of the third party and the operator should be considered as if they were a single entity.
If an interposed entity contracts as principal with passengers, it may well have carriers' liability insurance obligations under the Commonwealth Civil Aviation (Carriers' Liability) Act 1959 or the equivalent legislation of the States.

Much of the memorandum demonstrates the difficulty of interpreting the relevant regulation and the need to examine the individual circumstances of each case. Here we are of the view that both SFA and RegionAir were controlled by Mr Van De Wiel and his direct associates. There is no evidence that RegionAir performed any other function as a travel agent between September and November 2001 than to sell tickets on flights operated by SFA. While it was said that RegionAir organised other tours, we are not satisfied that these were not all prior to September 2001. We take the view that RegionAir acted as agent for SFA to sell tickets for seats on flights operated by SFA. It is clear that the line between charter and RPT operations is whether accommodation in an aircraft is made available for use by persons generally by the operator. Where seats are sold to persons generally by an independent third party and the operator makes available the whole space to that third party, we do not see the regulations as deeming the operation as RPT. We have some concern at this state of affairs as it would appear to allow an independent travel agent to provide an effective RPT operation using an operator with a charter AOC to provide the service without the increased level of safety required for an RPT-AOC. However, in this case we are satisfied that the relationship between SFA and RegionAir was such that the arrangement can be characterised as SFA making accommodation on the aircraft available to persons generally.

We have no doubt that Mr Van De Wiel and the Schutt Aviation group had harboured aspirations to embark on an RPT operation. Evidence showed that past attempts had been made to acquire two existing RPT operators and an application for an RPT-AOC was made by RegionAir Express Pty Ltd in March 2001. We are of the view that, when SWT ceased its operations at Moorabbin, Mr Van De Wiel and his associates arranged for Aviatour Pty Ltd, trading as RegionAir Travel, to assume the role formerly played by SWT in order to continue and maintain the regular Bass Strait passenger service. It is likely that this was done pending the granting of the RPT-AOC. It is apparent, however, that neither CASA nor Mr Van De Wiel were clear on whether or not, during that period of time, the arrangements amounted to an RPT operation. It is difficult for CASA to rely on Mr Botham's letter of 26 September 2001 as a direction to cease such operations, which was ignored by Mr Van De Wiel. The words in parenthesis clearly showed that CASA was unsure of its position. This was made even clearer at the hearing when Mr Botham said that these words came from CASA legal counsel. Further, the letter stated that the view was based on CASA's opinion that it was not an arm's length relationship. We accept that Mr Van De Wiel sought his own legal opinion, which was contrary to that put by CASA.
While, with the benefit of a formal three day hearing and much documentation and evidence that was not necessarily available to the parties at the time of the decision, we have come to the view that the operations conducted by SFA through RegionAir Travel from September to November 2001 constituted RPT operations in contravention of the regulations, we accept that SFA and Mr Van De Wiel did not deliberately and knowingly embark on that course. It should be noted that we have no evidence of any serious safety issues in the operations of SFA. As a consequence, it is appropriate to consider the extent of a penalty for the contravention of the regulations. Section 28BA(3) of the Act provides:
If a condition of an AOC is breached, CASA may, by written notice given to its holder, suspend or cancel:
(a)the AOC; or
(b)any specified authorisation contained in the AOC;
whether or not the breach is continuing.

Here, by its notice of 16 April 2002, CASA cancelled the AOC of SFA. Such cancellation was advertised by CASA on its website and it is clear that the cancellation became known within the industry. Notwithstanding a partial stay of the cancellation relating to aerial work, it is clear that the actions of CASA have had a significant adverse financial impact on SFA.

In our view, the circumstances of this case justify a suspension only and not full cancellation. The Tribunal is unable to change the facts of the last six months since the cancellation of the AOC and we believe that an appropriate penalty has been met by the initial cancellation and partial stay of such cancellation. Consequently, in relation to SFA, we should set aside the decision to cancel the AOC and, in its stead, suspend the authorisation contained in the AOC to conduct charter operations other than those described as joy flights until the date of this decision. It should be noted that no allegations have been made and no evidence provided which indicates any criticism of SFA in the conduct of its aerial work operations, including flying training. Given the very active role played by Mr Van De Wiel in the arrangements, it is similarly appropriate to set aside the decision to cancel his approval as chief pilot and, in its instead, suspend such approval until the date of this decision.
I certify that the twenty-four [24] preceding paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for the decision herein of
Mr B.H. Pascoe, Senior Member
Air Marshal B. Gration, Member
(sgd)       Catherine Thomas
              Clerk
Date of Hearing:  14-16 October 2002
Date of Decision:  8 November 2002
Solicitor for the applicant:           Nil — Mr S. Van De Wiel
Counsel for the respondent:        Mr I. Harvey
Solicitor for the respondent:        Mr A. Anastasi, with Civil Aviation Safety Authority

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Schutt Flying Academy (Australia) Pty Ltd and Anor and Civil Aviation Safety Authority [2002] AATA 1151

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