Keeping staff in this sector is a constant problem due to:
- rising living costs
- reduced tourist demand after COVID
- increased competition from other industries like passenger transport.
This introduces risks such as:
- experience of key personnel
- gaps in training.
Organisations struggling to keep staff may face safety issues if not addressed.
What can parachuting operators do?
To help mitigate poor staff retention and high turnover, you should:
- use a good training system that tracks requirement updates
- give effective training
- have an onboarding process and make sure you include all training requirements
- avoid relying on a single person and make sure there are backups for important roles
- make sure the right people are in the important positions
- offer career pathways and progression to staff.
You should consider how you support crew with limited experience to make sure there are no safety issues.
Training and checking meet the basic regulations, but you should look into additional support for junior crew.
If your crew has low to average experience, you should consider discussing safety more openly. Operators worry about new pilots lacking airmanship skills, and the problem is worse with the high turnover of pilots.
Other options to support inexperienced crew:
- Start a mentoring program where junior pilots learn from more experienced ones. This goes beyond basic training and helps junior pilots gain valuable insights from seasoned pilots.
- Through mentoring and safety briefings, focus on sharing information that improves safety and prevents accidents. Discuss what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.
- Standardise operations as much as possible by using ‘airline’ style SOPs. This reduces variation and crew workload. It also helps focus more on safely operating the aircraft.
- Encourage a positive safety culture to help crew feel comfortable raising concerns. This way, the crew can make better risk-based decisions with your support.
What is CASA doing or has already delivered?
We have introduced Part 105 of CASR. Part 105 details the requirements for the certification and management for parachute operators.
This includes the standards and competency units for jump pilot authorisations. It also includes the pilot requirements for parachute descents—Part 103 aircraft. This makes sure all flight crew are competent before they start important safety tasks.
Other resources include:
- Part 105 Manual of Standards
- CASA 263/02 Parachute descents - authorisation and specification
- CASA EX105/23 Part 105 (parachute operators and pilots) Instrument 2023
We have also produced further guidance material to help operators understand and meet the rules.