ISTAT Jetrader - Winter 2019 - 35

"Whatever is in the lease is retained and strengthened
through GATS. GATS strengthens the legal position of airlines
through reinforcing their lease rights through the e-platform,"
Wool says. "There will be no 'automatic transfers.' The system
has a standard set of forms between the trade partners,
but everything must be done in accordance with the lease.
Critically, any conditions to transfer that exist in the lease
would become part of the electronic process and would have
to be approved by the airline. The airline is fully protected; in
fact, they are more protected than how it is today."
Wool continues: "Today, lease conditions are on paper;
under GATS, they will be electronic and under the airline's
control. This is reflected in the concept of GATS 'advance
requirements,' e-conditions from the lease that must be
approved by the airline."
David Swan moderated the Making
Aircraft Trading Easier: Global Aircraft
Trading System (GATS) Panel at ISTAT
EMEA 2018 in Prague.

Modernizing the Process
For as technical an industry as aviation is, its processes are
surprisingly old-fashioned. "The whole aircraft leasing industry
is ripe for innovation," Swan says. "It's crazy we're still doing
things the way they were
done in the 1980s. We
can streamline a lot of
processes with better
use of technology."
Helping with that
streamlining is Fexco,
which will build, support
and operate the GATS
platform. "Our near 40year experience building
technology-based
payment and transaction
solutions for global
partners, combined with
user and stakeholder
inputs from the aviation
industry, will ensure a
customer-centric GATS
platform providing the
simplicity, ease-of-use and security demanded by the sector,"
says Karl Aherne, director of strategic business development
at Fexco.
However, the modernization of aircraft leasing doesn't
stop with the launch of GATS. "There are many additional
potential uses of GATS, which will work well once the industry
is comfortable with the platform," Wool says.
Swan is more specific about what those additional uses
might be. For one, with GATS providing a central place where
you can record the owners of all leased aircraft, it's not much
of a stretch to consider that it might also securely store all the
documents relating to that aircraft.

"GATS strengthens the legal position of airlines through
reinforcing their lease rights through the e-platform."
intensive and legal intensive individual novations and
assignments of leases."

Protecting Rights
A key principle of GATS is that users can create, transfer
and secure interests without disturbing the existing lease
agreements. In other words, it protects the rights of all parties
involved, especially the lessees. "We wanted to be proactive
and try to find ways to preserve all our lessee's rights,
keeping them in the same position in terms of increased costs
but making it much simpler for them," Swan says.

Jetrader

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ISTAT Jetrader - Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ISTAT Jetrader - Winter 2019
