The Directorate-General of Civil Aviation has issued revised standard operating procedures for export of aircraft which will make it easier for companies which have leased aircraft to airlines in India to take them back in case the airline company defaults on payment of lease.

The notification called ‘Effective implementation of Cape Town Convention- Issuance of revised Standard Operating Procedure for Export of Aircraft’ was issued on Monday.

The Cape Town Convention is a global registry of aircraft. The notification will make it easier for global leasing companies to re-export their aircraft which will allow them to redeploy these assets with other airlines. The comfort provided by the implementation of the new notification will also help bring down the leasing rates that airlines in India have to pay.

“World over the trend is to lease and not own aircraft. Leasing companies decide on how much to charge for leasing an aircraft considering various risk factors, including whether the country is signatory to all global aviation conventions and also the perception about the airline to which the aircraft is being leased. With the latest notification the risk factor comes down as now it will be easier to take out the aircraft,” a former government official, involved with airlines whose aircraft were sought to be taken out of the country, said.

The rules now stipulate that when the DGCA gets a request for deregistration of an aircraft with the company in whose name the aircraft is originally registered it will immediate post this fact on its website giving the date when the request came, the type and registration number of the aircraft and the name of the operator in whose name the aircraft is registered.

The DGCA will also simultaneously send an e-mail to the officer looking after the export of the aircraft at various airports around the country. “The airport operator will calculate the dues related to the aircraft in question for a period of three months immediately preceding the date of declared default which is the date on which the request for deregistration was received by the DGCA and raise bills within five working days of the first email received by the DGCA,” the DGCA notification said.

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