Business aviation in the Middle East needs good, consistent regulation, if it is to remain efficient and competitive and to grow consistently, delegates at yesterday’s MEBAA conference were told by leading industry figures.

The key issue is that squaring the circle of which regulatory regime to follow is a daunting challenge in a region where Saudi Arabia observes the FAA rulebook and the rest of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries are now committed to developing business and general aviation under an EASA framework.

Pilot licenses, type ratings and MRO accreditations are all areas where having six oversight regimes among the GCC civil aviation authorities, each with its own idiosyncrasies, can create daily problems that could be avoided through a more cooperative and long-term approach.

Several GCC regulators, facing acute manpower shortages, have opted to treat general aviation as if it were identical to commercial aviation to avoid the challenge of creating separate departments to deal with the specialist sector. However, the UAE is now leading the way towards implementation of European EASA regulations covering business aviation, in the hope that this will solve the difficulties operators face.

“The regulators are working very hard in the region to create a common system for the industry rather than having fragmented rules and regulations governing aviation. We are trying to narrow the gap between commercial and business aviation. The ultimate objective is to make this business safe, viable and secure,” said Ahmed Al Neham, acting undersecretary for Civil Aviation Affairs at Bahrain’s Ministry of Transportation.

Business aviation realities often mean regulatory treatment, which sometimes breaks the letter, if not the spirit, of commercial regulations, and this is something the UAE GCAA is anxious to maintain to improve the operability of business aviation.

“Until we implement EASA with more differentiation between commercial aviation and business aviation, operators can seek waivers or remove requirements. The risk exposure the operator is going to have with this risk is removed. We are still accepting waivers and showing some degree of flexibility,” said Walid Al Rahmani, director policy, regulation and planning, safety affairs, UAE GCAA, who added, “Operators, if you think this is unsatisfactory, please come forward with your [own] waiver request.”

“I believe that the relationship between the extent of regulation and safety records is a little more tenuous than some believe. In the U.S., Part 135 safety regulations are more onerous than Part 91. Most corporate operators under Part 91 have vastly superior record over Part 135 Air Taxi. You have to conclude that more safety doesn’t mean [better airworthiness],” said Peter Ingleton, director, ICAO Liaison Office at IBAC.

Peter Bunce, president and CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, said regulators had to introduce a component of risk into their assessments. He cited the example of how Chinese aviation regulators, grappling with a new sector, had drawn regulatory parallels between a light aircraft and a motorcycle, or a large airplane to a car. “Whether you are paying money to hire a taxi or a limo, equate that to a stronger issue of regulation [in aviation],” he said

“We need a risk-based approach to risk assessment. Start to apply these rules to general aviation or business aviation. Is a motorcycle driver taking a risk? Probably, if he’s not wearing a helmet. As people start to transact with money, ratchet up [oversight], but not so dramatically that commerce ceases, impeding safety by overregulation.”

He pointed to EASA regulations that for a long time kept pilots from maturing their general private pilot licenses to instrument ratings, to highlight how regulators’ good intentions could create costs that were so high that the industry could not afford them, a definite example of a “negative safety impact from overregulation.”