Days after an airport runway accident in Mayaguana took the lives of three innocent people, Llewellyn Boyer-Cartwright, the commercial pilot turned attorney and the voice calling for the establishment of a Bahamas International Aircraft Registry, urged government to move quickly to establish the registry that will not only bring welcomed business to The Bahamas but will cause the country to deal with meeting global ICAO standards for airport safety.
“The focus to date has been on the establishment of an international aircraft registry because of the business potential it has,” said Boyer-Cartwright. “But last week’s tragedy in Mayaguana brings into sharp relief the other need for such a registry because an international registry cannot exist without the country being committed to establishing and maintaining ICAO standards for safety at international airports. Those standards encompass everything from lighting to runway maintenance to having working firefighting equipment to emergency plans. It covers air traffic controllers and the equipment in the control towers and much more that we cannot continue to ignore and hope that luck will carry us through, especially now given the need to increase air traffic to this country in a way that we have never done before in order to fill all the new hotel capacity that will be available by the end of 2014.”
In addition, said Boyer-Cartwright, the competition from other countries is continuing to heat up, Guernsey announcing that it will open its aircraft registry in June and Isle of Man reporting its 500th registration recently.
“Right now, The Bahamas still has a window of opportunity to create an international aircraft registry that will attract the quality individual and corporate executive jet and private aircraft market,” said Boyer-Cartwright, a partner at law firm of Callenders & Co. “But our window of opportunity is narrowing as more and more countries realize the potential of a registry.”
Guernsey, said Boyer-Cartwright, will be the newest to enter the increasingly lucrative arena when it opens in less than two months and is already targeting a registry of 150 aircraft by 2015. Jersey, he said, may not be far behind.
“That’s less than two years from now and they are only opening in June,” he said. “Isle of Man, which only opened its electronic registry in May of 2007, just recorded its 500th aircraft registration and was voted best in the world for service in 2012. Aruba, Bermuda, Cayman, Malta, Isle of Man and now Guernsey are all appreciating the value that offering an electronic registry brings to the full menu of provision of financial services to attract high net worth individuals and I would like The Bahamas to move judiciously but quickly so that we can take advantage of this window of opportunity before it is too late and we end up playing catch up.”
The Bahamian government is moving toward the creation of a registry and named a consultative committee in 2012. Boyer-Cartwright serves on that committee which is under the auspices of the Ministry of Transport & Aviation and is chaired by Charles Albury, undersecretary.
“The committee is making good progress, but what we have to do now is establish what it takes to create and complete the framework for how the registry will be administered and managed, what fees will be charged and whether or not it will be part of the Bahamas Maritime Authority based in London or a separate entity,” said Boyer-Cartwright, who has traveled to five international aviation conferences in the past year. “I’ve been fortunate to meet with pioneers who have led the way in registries. The more I see, the more I am convinced that The Bahamas can do this and do it well, attracting an entirely new group of high net worth individuals who may very well end up being second home owners and investing in other ways in The Bahamas all because they were introduced to the country through the aircraft registry.”