Meltveit Kleppa lettere indignert

Jeg tolket hennes uttalelse på NRK vedr en evt. nedleggelse av kontrollsentraler som ren irritasjon. Det kan virke som om hun ikke var klar over at nyheten var lekket, og at Avinors pressemelding overrasket henne. Vel, uansett så er det sterkt bekymring i Flight Safety Foundation over det som nå skjer i Eurocontrol. Europa står overfor en vodsom utfordring på flere områder, men FSF vektlegger det faktum at der det trengs sikkerhetsnettverk, fyker det nå arbeidsplasser. Association of European Airlines er også bekymret. Situasjonen er graverende, og jeg vedlegger artikkelen sakset fra Curt Lewis i sin helhet:

Aviation Experts See Europe Safety Concerns

By ANDY PASZTOR
ISTANBUL-European budget cuts threaten to erode aviation safety by reducing the number of regulators, inspectors and air-traffic controllers overseeing the region's airlines, said industry experts at a safety conference that kicked off here Wednesday.
Speakers and attendees at the Flight Safety Foundation's seminar discussed sharp spending cuts, which have slashed personnel by 30% or more at some national regulatory authorities over the past few years. And the trend, these officials said, appears to be accelerating.
Regions such as Europe that "traditionally have led safety issues are muddling their way through the global economic crisis," said Lynn Brubaker, chairman of the foundation, an industry-backed group based in Alexandria, Va., that advocates for safety in more than 150 countries.
Echoing the same worries, Bill Voss, the foundation's chief executive, said budget pressures are prompting European politicians to target aviation-safety groups. "Understaffed regulators are probably going to be even more understaffed."
Industry and government safety officials also agreed that the European Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA, an umbrella group set up in the past decade to draft European-wide regulations and supervise national regulatory authorities, may lack the manpower and expertise to effectively fill the gaps.
In a presentation slated to be delivered to the conference on Thursday, pilot union leader Martin Chalk, president of the European Cockpit Association, indicates that pilots in some countries are worried about regulators who have "apparently lost their teeth."
According to Mr. Chalk, the U.K. lost 30% of its aviation-safety regulatory work force between 2002 and 2007, while the country's carriers over the same period increased their overall capacity by roughly the same percentage.
Mr. Chalk's analysis also suggests that EASA, based in Cologne, Germany, has a total of less than 200 safety professionals to ensure that more than 30 countries are adequately staffing regulatory offices and enforcing mandatory safety standards.
European accident statistics have remained relatively flat over the past few years. But Mr. Chalk and other critics of the cutbacks contend that with the acquiescence of local regulators, some large carriers have been saving money by skirting EASA regulations related to simulator training and pilot fatigue.
Michel Masson, a senior safety official at EASA, acknowledged in an interview that his agency isn't equipped or authorized to step in when national regulators scale back oversight. "You can't just transfer regulatory responsibilities like that," Mr. Masson said.
The budget crunch also has hit Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency responsible for coordinating air-traffic management across more than 35 European countries. According to Radu Cioponea, a senior safety official at Eurocontrol, the agency has shed roughly 25% of its staff in the last three or four years, with offices responsible for safety analysis suffering deeper cuts. Mr. Cioponea said training is the first item to suffer under such circumstances.
David McMillan, the director general of Eurocontrol, said "there's no evidence yet that (safety margins) are worse" than in the past. But he said budget pressures are likely to encourage further consolidation of air-traffic facilities and operations. "Why does every country need to have everything" related to air-traffic management, Mr. McMillan asked during an interview Wednesday, when "the number of experts we have in Europe is quite limited."
The budget reductions comes as Portugal, Greece and other countries are recovering from economic crises-and looking at further ways to ramp down government spending.
Overall, Europe faces "a growing and quite serious shortage of safety oversight staff," Mike Ambrose, director-general of the European Regions Airline Association, told the conference. The association represents 80 carriers and more than 130 other companies, including aircraft and engine makers.
In an interview, Mr. Ambrose stressed that Europe isn't experiencing "a safety meltdown." But he said that the worsening budget outlook in many countries means that in terms of regulatory oversight, "there simply isn't the same depth of experience or consistent expertise there was years ago."