{"id":26429,"date":"2025-09-16T20:15:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T20:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/26429\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T20:15:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T20:15:14","slug":"aviation-summit-new-civil-aviation-authority-chief-kane-patena-asked-how-hell-handle-old-heads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/26429\/","title":{"rendered":"Aviation summit: New Civil Aviation Authority chief Kane Patena asked how he\u2019ll handle \u2018old heads\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patena\u2019s entry has been keenly awaited by many in aviation and today he addressed the Aviation Industry Association (AIANZ) conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said he might not have much aviation experience, but he had plenty of experience effecting change at organisations.<\/p>\n

Patena was previously NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi director of land transport, WorkSafe New Zealand deputy chief executive and a Crown prosecutor with Meredith Connell.<\/p>\n

He said yesterday\u2019s Herald report saying the regulator was thought to need \u201can attitude adjustment\u201d<\/a> did not fairly respect progress already made at the CAA.<\/p>\n

AIANZ acting president Gordon Alexander yesterday said the authority had \u201ctoo much inward focus that has come at the expense of a wider view\u201d.<\/p>\n

Event MC Jehan Casinader today said many in the sector had described sector relationships with the CAA as \u201chostile\u201d or \u201cbroken\u201d.<\/p>\n

Patena said he wanted to work to make the CAA more consistent and better with communication.<\/p>\n

He said the CAA also needed to be more stringent about any conflict of interest or perceived conflict-of-interest issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got my sights firmly focused on the future and what\u2019s possible,\u201d Patena said.<\/p>\n

But he was also asked about \u201cold heads\u201d at the CAA resisting change.<\/p>\n

\"KaneKane Patena said he was mindful of being just a fortnight into the job and was keen to learn more about the entire sector. Photo \/ Smoke Photo and Video<\/p>\n

Patena said the authority had to be clear about where it was going.<\/p>\n

He said if people were on board with that, great.<\/p>\n

If not, they might have to reconsider if they wanted to keep working at the agency.<\/p>\n

But Patena said it was also important for him to listen to any CAA employees\u2019 reservations about change.<\/p>\n

And an audience member implored him not to make the CAA have yet another restructure and leave operators confused about who to deal with.<\/p>\n

Patena said the CAA would have to work with the sector to establish priorities.<\/p>\n

He was asked about whistleblowers who\u2019d complained about a toxic culture at the regulator.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a documented public history about the culture within the CAA.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was mindful of being just a fortnight into the job and was keen to learn more about the entire sector.<\/p>\n

The conference this week has heard complaints from operators about the CAA being too punitive.<\/p>\n

Patena said when rogue operators surfaced, action had to be taken for everyone\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need a strong and credible regulator who can hold them to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said only about 1% of the authority\u2019s budget went towards prosecutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat does not indicate to me it\u2019s a punitive regulator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patena acknowledged that some civil aviation rules might be outmoded, and licencing processes could be sped up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want us to be able to look at how we can automate.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said progress had been made addressing lengthy airport queues, as Associate Minister of Transport James Meager acknowledged this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to satisfy myself that we can make that stick,\u201d Patena said.<\/p>\n

John Weekes<\/a> is a business journalist covering aviation. He has previously covered consumer affairs, crime, politics and courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patena\u2019s entry has been keenly awaited by many in aviation and today he addressed the Aviation Industry Association…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26504,13916,1124,15033,1558,11783,138,12974,3937,26501,4480,18326,106,7799,11676,5420,221,26502,117,111,139,69,9716,26503,312,23850],"class_list":["post-26429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-ability","tag-asked","tag-authority","tag-aviation","tag-been","tag-brought","tag-business","tag-change","tag-chief","tag-civil","tag-drive","tag-handle","tag-head","tag-heads","tag-hell","tag-hes","tag-how","tag-kane","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-old","tag-patena","tag-says","tag-summit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}