2001
Dick Smith's secret recipe for success
By Dick Smith
Aug 30, 2001, 11:56

Dick Smith's secret recipe for success

Dick Smith explains how Australia could be a world leader in aviation.

Close your eyes and picture this. Bankstown Airport on a fine warm day. Enthusiastic young trainee pilots from all around the world excitedly discussing their latest flight over lunch in the crowded café, waiting in the queue to buy a magazine in one of the many pilot shops, trying to squeeze in a booking for next weekend but knowing they would have to get in early because the aircraft fleet would be fully booked. This is my vision for aviation in Australia.

Australia could be the best country in the world for aviation. We have weather that European pilots dream about and our terrain is flat enough to send the more adventurous skiers and climbers overseas. Our dollar is so low that foreigners could learn to fly here at a bargain price while having a fantastic overseas holiday and seeing our spectacular scenery from the air.

The reality is that general aviation in Australia is in decline. Recently I was at Bankstown Airport at 10 am on a magnificent CAVOK day and it was like a ghost town. It appears that the thriving business at Bankstown at present is the fitting of ferry tanks to aircraft which have been sold to the United States. I can understand the reason for this. Recently I returned from a trip to the USA where general aviation airports are so busy, exciting and vibrant that anyone could become enthused about aviation.

The success formula - ask advice and copy the best from others
This could easily be achieved in Australia. There is a proven formula for success that could result in major reforms and help Australia to be a world leader in aviation. This very simple formula is the secret of my business success. In the case of Dick Smith Electronics, Australian Geographic and Dick Smith Foods I have travelled the world, asked advice and copied the best from others. With the food company alone I am very proud that this has resulted in over $100 million worth of business for Aussie farmers and manufacturers in the past 16 months.

Why didn’t my proven formula for business success work in aviation? During my first term on the CASA Board (from 1988 until 1992) it was more successful and substantial reforms were accomplished by copying the best from leading aviation countries. For example, the present AMATS airspace system was introduced and the old quadrantal rule was replaced by hemispherical cruising levels with VFR aircraft cruising at 500’ ICAO levels for the first time.

During my second term at CASA (from 1997 to 1999) people who were resistant to change succeeded in preventing any further reform. In the past few years the bureaucracy was successful in doubling the budget of CASA to $100 million p.a. and pushing for a substantial increase in staff levels. Admittedly this looks good to the travelling (and voting) public who would undoubtedly assume that increased levels of safety would result. Unfortunately, in a bureaucracy such as CASA, increased funding leads to increased paperwork for businesses and even higher expenses. This would most likely lead to a reduction in the overall level of safety as finite resources are moved away from practical safety matters.

From my experience of flying in every continent in the world, it is apparent that most countries have evolved their own unique procedures to facilitate aviation and maintain high safety levels at the lowest possible cost. The country whose safety regulator is progressive enough to combine the benefits of all other countries will reap the rewards. For this reason I introduced the following CASA Service Charter during my term as the organisation’s Chairman.

CASA Board policies will:

• Follow proven safety procedures and standards from leading aviation countries, which best allocate finite safety resources, to protect fare paying passengers and encourage high participation levels in aviation activities; and
• Harmonise with the procedure or standards which most efficiently allocates the finite resources, where procedures and standards vary between leading aviation countries.

In other words, use proven safe methods from all around the world and where there is a choice of several proven safe procedures, use the least expensive.

I expected the unions and big business to resist this because they can pass on costs to other people and mistakenly believe that high costs lead to increased safety. This is not necessarily true. Aviation costs in the USA are lower than Australia due to more simple regulations and less paperwork, however the excerpt below shows that the Australian safety record cannot really compare.

“As a result of the disparities in exposure, 40 years in Australia . . . with no fatal passenger jet hull losses equate to about 9 months of current passenger jet operations in the United States.” From the paper “The World’s Safest Aviation System: Comparing fatal hull loss accident rates among countries and regions” by Dr Robert Matthews, Safety Analysis Branch Office of Accident Investigation, FAA, 30 June 2000.

Proposed reforms would have led to a boom in general aviation so it was ironic that a number of operators at Bankstown Airport sent out a petition against me during my term as CASA Chairman. Years later the instigator of the petition told me that it had “just been a misunderstanding.”

The irony is that with some support from the industry, major reforms could have led to a boom in general aviation today.

It would have been fantastic if the same expertise that generated $100 million worth of business for Australian farmers and manufacturers could have been used to assist the aviation industry. Wouldn’t it be great if I could do that one day?

Entry last amended 18/11/02.