Civil Aviation Secretary Vumrunman Varnam said on Tuesday that a bill to ratify the Cape Town Convention to promote aircraft leasing has been approved by the federal cabinet, adding that it will be submitted to Parliament for approval.
“We hope that sooner rather than later the Cape Town Convention will have legal backing in India and become enforceable to significantly support aircraft leasing and acquisition,” he said at a conference in Greater Noida. .
He was speaking at an international conference on air mobility organized by industry body CII and the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Last week, the Cabinet passed the Aviation Goods Interests Protection and Enforcement Bill. It aims to implement the provisions of the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (Cape Town Convention) and the Protocol on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment (Cape Town Protocol).
Under the Cape Town Convention, lessors can regain ownership of aircraft they lease to airlines. When Go First was undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, there was a moratorium period during which lessors could not take back the aircraft they had leased to airlines. Special arrangements were then introduced to allow the lessors involved to receive leased aircraft from Go First. India is a signatory to the Cape Town Convention but has not yet ratified the Convention.
On Monday, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) ordered the liquidation of Go First.
Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of India Act, 2024 (Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhinyam), which replaced the 90-year-old Aircraft Act, came into effect on January 1. The Act aims to promote aircraft design and manufacturing in India and ease of doing business. In aerospace.
