Commercial aviation is the biggest impediment to business aviation’s growth in Asia, according to Tay Tiang Guan, deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS). He said the rapid growth of the commercial aviation sector is taking the lion’s share of regulators’ attention and dominating airspace.

CAAS and other Asian regulators are calling for a common industry standard to help develop the business aviation market throughout the region. Representatives from three of the region’s most influential aviation authorities converged at ABACE in Shanghai this week to debate regional policy-making. Tay, together with Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) Deputy Administrator Xia Xinghua; Yukiyoshi Noguchi, principal Deputy Director of the aviation strategy division of the Japanese Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB); and Don Spruston, Director General of the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC), came together in a panel moderated by John Porcari, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation.

“Although it is fantastic to see several new smaller airports springing up, it is important that they are not [doing so] at the expense of allowing business aviation operators access to the larger international airfields,” said Porcari. “We encourage the development of these regional satellite airports, but we don’t want to see discrimination at large airports, and we need to keep a reasonable level of accessibility at larger hubs.”