Kerry Lynch stepped into the role of editor of the&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;monthly magazine in May 2022 after serving with&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;for eight years. She joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in December 2014 as a senior editor covering Washington and business aviation news. She has also served on Convention News teams, including as editor of&nbsp;HAI Convention News. Lynch previously spent 25 years with Aviation Week. During her time there, she reported for and later steered&nbsp;The Weekly of Business Aviation, oversaw business aviation content on the&nbsp;Aviation Week Intelligence Network, served on the&nbsp;Show News&nbsp;staff, and held roles as the Washington columnist for&nbsp;Business &amp; Commercial Aviation&nbsp;and&nbsp;Overhaul &amp; Maintenance&nbsp;monthly magazines. In 2021 she was honored with the National Business Aviation Association Platinum Wing Award for lifetime achievement in journalism and was the 2004 recipient of the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalism Excellence Award. She also has been a recipient of an Aerospace Media Award for business aviation (2022) and NBAA Gold Wing Award (2003, 2024). Lynch graduated from The Ohio State University with a bachelor of arts in journalism.

Editor, AIN monthly magazine

Kerry Lynch

Global operations are increasing, but geopolitical conflicts and a lack of infrastructure are making them much more complex, panelists agreed during EBACE 2025 last week.
Speaking during a session on “Business Aviation Around the World: Navigation Global Operational Challenges,” Maxim Ivanov, operations manager for FCG Ops, said the number of operations has grown and is placing a strain on air navigation service providers and ground infrastructure. He cited Central Asia as an example.
“Nobody knows when the Russian airspace will be opened,” Ivanov noted. “That is why Central Asia is still one of the biggest hubs connecting Europe and Asia, and the passenger traffic has increased.”
The governments and the authorities in Central Asia are trying to adapt to this demand, he said, including with their restrictions and permissions. “They are trying to distribute the [airspace] between the scheduled airlines and business aviation, for example,” he said.
Ivanov pointed to plans to open an airport in Uzbekistan and efforts to build more flexibility in Kazakhstan. A few months ago, requirements in Kazakhstan “were super strict,” he said, making it impossible to obtain requisite permissions during the weekends or at night. “They realized they need to change something to accommodate as many flights as possible, so now there is an option to organize the permission during the night and during the weekend.” Georgia is also trying to accommodate more, he said.
But challenges persist, including dealing with antiquated navigation equipment. Such upgrades take time, he said. “But most importantly, they are ready to change based on the traffic.”
James Collas, operations director with UAS International Trip Support, also pointed to the lack of airport infrastructure in areas such as the Middle East and Africa. “We're now operating more into emerging markets, and those emerging markets haven't got the capacity in the airport infrastructure to support the increase in traffic,” Collas said.
“For example, the G20 this year is going to be held in South Africa, and that doesn't have the infrastructure to support all the increase in traffic. If Saudi decides to send a royal delegation, they'll be up with about seven or eight aircraft, and the airport just doesn't have all of the infrastructure. I know that they'll be operating on diplomatic approvals, but that's almost irrelevant as it pertains to infrastructure because the approvals aren't going to make more infrastructure.”
This makes searching for alternatives even more important, he said. “You have to expand the airport sphere and look at other airports. It's a headache to do that. At some point, emerging markets are going to have to look at the increase in traffic and then decide whether it's financially viable for them to increase the local infrastructure to support the increase in traffic.
Sebastian Beyhaut, a board member at Pike Aviation, also discussed difficulties in the Americas. “We have a steady growth in the region. It’s a challenge that we're facing, but also an opportunity that we're facing.”
He sees a lot of investment on the runways, on the rails, on the terminals. It's not just the major airports, he said, but also smaller executive locations.
Ivanov added that in Africa, two major projects are ongoing to help build out infrastructure. One involves the Single Market, a directive signed by the 48 countries to open the skies and better align operating rules. The other is a major infrastructure project ongoing through a collaboration with the International Civil Aviation Organization and specific banks in Africa.
“They are trying to improve the capacity,” Ivanov said. “Africa is quite a specific and difficult region in terms of collaboration, and there is still a lot of resistance from the government and the military, but what's good is we see already changes.”
These include the liberalization of airspace. “If you would ask a few years ago if Africa would implement [free routes in] airspace, I would say you're joking.”
“You could probably pick something happening on every single continent that's causing some sort of disruption,” added Collas. “The good thing about aviation is it's very dynamic and it's very adaptable.”
Collas noted that recently, UAS had a diplomatic flight en route to Saudi Arabia that had to return to China over permits in Pakistan during the India-Pakistan conflict. “It's very, very difficult because of their immense procedural red tape just to have a landing permit because of the geopolitical situation. Even though it was specific to India and Pakistan, it actually has a massive impact across all aviation.”
He added that this is an issue that is universal, not specific to general or commercial aviation. “It’s incumbent on operational departments to be able to react quickly to support any kind of mission, so you need to be able to kind of keep up to date with what's happening, even rumors about what’s happening. This happens in Africa, you get grumblings of a coup, then you have to start mitigating that with what you are going to do if it happens. Now we didn't expect that to happen with an aircraft over Pakistan, but when it comes to safety and security, there's no compromise in aviation.”
Beyhaut added that in the Americas, there are always political elements that need to be managed. “Flying into a specific location like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, it's high chances, but you see nowadays that the geopolitical [issues] go beyond that,” he said,
He noted, as an example, Canadian and U.S. citizens are now required to obtain visas before entering Brazil.
Ultimately, it comes down to preparation and lessons learned to mitigate situations, the panelists agreed.
“We sometimes feel a lack of real awareness, so we have to check various sources to find what is going on and how they affect the operation,” Ivanov said. “You should have a local representative who you are able to call, and they will describe what is going on.”
This is particularly true in regions where information is harder to obtain. There are multiple sources online and through the government, but it also involves local representatives for the trip planning services.
When asked about particularly challenging areas, Collas said Japan. “Every time we have a mission to Japan, they have massive infrastructure problems now,” he said. “During Covid, they released a lot of ground handling staff, and then after Covid, there was an increase in traffic back to Japan. Those people who were released didn't want to come back. So now Japan has a massive shortage of staff whenever we operate there.”&nbsp;He added that there is a struggle to get the ground handling.
Ivanov discussed what he called “unofficial restrictions,” pointing to Turkey and Armenia as an example.&nbsp;“The challenge is that some while ago, Turkey did not allow overflights if they were going to Armenia, but this is unofficial,” Ivanov said. “Nobody knows. Nobody can find this information and the story behind it.” He cautioned that advanced planning is a must when possible.
Beyhaut noted that while Latin America has hot spots, the most complicated region anymore is the U.S.—“because of the final price that you pay for a flight.” Operators find the best infrastructure there on the ground, he said, but the charge has become unpredictable.
He noted recently, for example, he had customers going to Miami for Formula One and faced “massive prices.”&nbsp;There are many options, but the difficulty is finding the most economical one, because the service is the same.

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