When the ICAO Assembly meets in Montreal late this month, the International Business Aircraft Council (IBAC) will propose standardization of international regulations governing fractional ownership operations. At present, the U.S. recognizes fractional operations as non-commercial; other nations are not yet enforcing commercial rules on the industry, but several European administrations, led by the UK, are leaning strongly in that direction.
For frax owners, the distinction is important. Under a non-commercial classification, a U.S. or other foreign operator could fly to the UK and land at, say, Manchester, and then decide at short notice the following morning to fly to London. But if the operation were classed as commercial, such a flight would not be allowed without government approval, since it would break the cabotage rules imposed by essentially all states based on the ICAO Convention. These rules prohibit, among other things, unrestricted carriage of passengers on commercial flights between two points within a country outside one’s own. And government approval here would not simply mean ATC approval of one’s flight plan: the operator would have to formally seek the approval from the nation’s aviation legislators.
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