The FAA remains on track to roll out its new Civil Aviation Registry Electronic Services (CARES) on October 5, moving functions of the registry currently handled manually to a cloud-based online system.

CARES will provide a web-based platform for registering all U.S. aircraft, including unmanned aircraft systems, and airmen certifications. The system will replace current civil aviation registry processes and legacy systems. Congress in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 mandated the agency to develop the system, providing a three-year deadline to implement it.

Jeff Towers, who is the past chairman of the NBAA Tax Committee and general counsel with TVPX, told attendees at the virtual NBAA Aviation Tax & Regulatory Compliance Seminar last week that the system is designed to make the FAA more efficient, make records more accessible remotely, and enable government agencies to better vet the records to root out criminal and fraudulent activity.

Roberto Gonzalez, deputy director for the FAA’s office of foundational business, agreed, noting that with the current manual system aircraft registration could take up to eight weeks. Through CARES, that timeframe is anticipated to be reduced to about a week and might even shrink further as more artificial intelligence and other analytic tools are added over time.

The registry will be “role-based,” Gonzalez said, with certain access provided to different users, such as an owner/operator, airman, or law enforcement.

Plans call for phased implementation with initial automation and functions added over time. “Initially, we’re hoping to have everything that is currently automated in place,” maturing the system with improvements in the airmen certification system and then aircraft registration, Gonzalez said. “CARES will continuously improve throughout its lifecycle.”

FAA officials have been meeting with industry officials over the development of CARES and Gonzalez said the agency is looking for feedback. The FAA has developed a web page detailing regular updates about CARES and provided a link for feedback.