Operational air safety HQ for Brisbane

Brisbane is to be the new operational headquarters for the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

The decision reflects Brisbane's status as a major growing aviation centre servicing Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

CASA is locating the management teams for its two key operational groups in Brisbane – the Air Transport group and the General Aviation group.

The Air Transport group oversees the safety of all of Australia's international, domestic and larger regional airlines.

The General Aviation group has safety oversight of some smaller regional airlines, as well as charter operations.

Senior managers and their support teams for both groups will be based in Brisbane, along with an increased number of safety inspectors.   These will be in addition to the current 80 CASA staff in Brisbane.

New positions for CASA staff in Brisbane are being created by abolishing up to 60 positions that are currently based in Canberra.  

Staff will initially work out of CASA's existing two offices in Brisbane – at Hendra and Fortitude Valley.   In the future a new joint air transport/general aviation operations centre will be established at a single location in Brisbane.

CASA's chief executive officer Bruce Byron says locating CASA's operational headquarters in Brisbane is part of a package of reforms being introduced to improve safety performance.

“CASA needs to have its operational staff as close as possible to the aviation industry and that's why we are abolishing positions in Canberra and creating new ones in Brisbane and at our other front-line offices across Australia,” Bruce says.

“Just recently the Queensland Government forecast that 42,000 aviation-related jobs will be created in Brisbane and south-east Queensland over the next 20 years.   “It makes sense for the aviation safety regulator to work to support this growth in the aviation industry and one way we can do this is by being at the right locations.”

CASA has also announced that its existing office in Cairns will become the primary general aviation field office in Far North Queensland, taking this role over from the existing office in Townsville.   The intention is to close the Townsville office in the long term.