Message from President, BAOA

President’s Note

As we get together for the fourth edition of BizAV India Conference on the side-lines of the ‘Wings India’ event being held in Hyderabad from March 8-11, 2018, I am often asked a question on the role of BAOA, and what does it stand for in the present environment. The sceptics often confront me with facts and figures on how the industry is losing its importance, and the number of aircraft and helicopters under the BA/GA banner continue to show a negative growth trend over the past five years or so; a trend that does not seem to be turning around. In the next couple of paragraphs, I will try to answer these questions.

BAOA was established in 2011 to give a meaningful and consolidated voice to the GA/BA Industry, something which had never happened in the past. While the airlines had their industry bodies which were able to present their case to the Government bodies, BAOA had no unified voice that could be taken to the authorities, and all operators were approaching the authorities with individual problems and self-serving solutions, which never addressed the common concern of the industry. With the advent of BAOA, the GA/BA industry had an effective and transparent body, which interacted with the entire industry, and carried issues of common concern to the concerned authorities to seek time bound solutions. We have had many successes in the past seven years since we were formed, and probably a larger number of issues which we have not been able to resolve so far. This is not the place to list out either one of them. However, what is important is that there is process of continuous engagement with the government bodies, and the regulator, to present our view point, and list out our challenges. This is constant work in progress, and there cannot be any timelines to achieve a hundred percent result. New challenges emerge every day, and they need to be addressed on a regular basis, and that is what BAOA is doing.

The BizAV India Conference has come a long way since it was first held in Hyderabad in 2015. Starting modestly with only a few attendees, it has become an important platform for engagement between the industry and the government bodies. It is one place where meaningful discussions are held by industry specialists, government bodies, and users, and has started attracting a global audience as attendees. It is the only event which is dedicated to matters that concern the GA/BA industry, in the presence of government representatives and provide a platform from where BAOA takes up issues based on common discussions. I hope this platform becomes more and more powerful and gets the attention of the people in the government who can make a difference. I would really like some of the corporate leaders who are the actual users of business aviation taking the time to participate in this event and give out their first-hand experience on being the owner/user of BA/GA in India, and how it helps them in effectively managing their business.

Lastly, to answer some of the sceptics, I can only say that ‘Rome was not built in a day’. We must keep working at making things better for our industry, and we hope to achieve that in the coming years. While the commercial airlines are showing a robust growth trajectory, our industry continues to lag in the number of aircraft and helicopters that are being added in the country. The reasons are many, and hopefully some of these will be discussed in the Conference. The state of the economy which is still on a recovery path, the lack of GA/BA infrastructure, taxes that defy all reason and logic, and last, but not the least, a regulator that is still evolving in coming to accept that GA/BA operations are different from commercial airlines operations. Like I said, all this is work in progress. We are hopeful that the growth cycle will soon turn. We are fighting a perception battle, and I am confident that the good days of GA/BA will soon return. I say this with some amount of faith since I get a sense of sincerity from the present team of regulators and government bodies that they are open to understanding and solving problems. With new airports coming up in Navi Mumbai and Jewar, we hope that some of the infrastructure issues of GA/BA will be addressed.

Lastly, BAOA has also carried out a ‘GST Impact Study’ in partnership with Deloitte, and this report will be released at the Conference. It will be available to all our members and to other industry experts. We hope you all benefit from it. BAOA intends taking up select industry issues with the GST Council to see how best they can be addressed.

Till then, please fasten your seat belts and enjoy this edition of BizAV India. Please feel free to contact me at rohitkapur@baoa.in with your feedback and suggestions. I look forward to getting your inputs on how to address the issues at hand.

Happy Landings and Safe Flying!