Leasing of aircraft in accordance with international standards
Particular attention is paid to safety issues in the regulation of leases by international law. The most important of them is as follows: which state of aircraft registration or the state of the operator – is responsible for compliance with the relevant safety standards of the Chicago Convention, who is responsible for compliance with safety standards contained in existing national laws and regulations. To begin with, we will define several concepts contained in Annex 6 to the Chicago Convention. These are:
“The state of registration is the state in which the aircraft is registered”;
“The State of the operator is the State in which the operator’s principal commercial
activity is located or, in the absence of such commercial activity, the operator’s
permanent location”;
“Operator: A person, organization or enterprise engaged in or offering aircraft
operation services”;
“Aircraft Operator’s Certificate (AOC) is a certificate entitling an operator to perform certain commercial air transportation services”.
Potential safety issues arise when the leased aircraft is registered in one State and the operator using it in international air transport is in another.
The Convention places responsibility for compliance with established safety standards primarily on the state of registration of the aircraft, but also, in certain aspects, on the state of the operator. The means of transferring all or part of the duties and functions, from the first to the second, are listed in article 83 of the Convention of 20 June 1997.
Other aspects of security are increasingly being addressed by bilateral air transport agreements, regulations and decisions of regional bodies (such as the European Union and the European Civil Aviation Conference), as well as by ICAO meetings and studies. For example, guidelines on aircraft leasing, including model leasing terms for possible use by States in bilateral and regional contexts, have been developed by ICAO.
The next set of legal acts regulating safety issues are national rules. They may have an impact on the use of leased aircraft in international air transportation. For example, the United States of America does not authorize its national air carriers to rent aircraft with crew registered in another State for security reasons.