Kyrgyzstan has declared its intention to accede to the Cape Town Convention (CTC) as a means of facilitating fleet renewal among the country’s carriers and allowing them to benefit from improved leasing contract terms.
Signed in 2001, the convention is an international treaty intended to standardise transactions involving movable property. Regarding aircraft, it allows lenders and lessors in different countries to register an Irrevocable De-registration and Export Request Authorisation (IDERA) with a civil aviation regulator in the event a local lessee defaults on a contract.
The move was debated at the Supreme Council (Jogorku Kenesh), Kyrgyzstan’s legislative assembly, during the week of March 12, Kyrgyzstan's Kant online news site reported.
During the sessions, Ermek Mamyrkaliev, deputy minister for transport and roads, argued that the protocol’s stable regulations would serve as a guarantee to creditors that the country fulfils its obligations, in this way improving its investment credentials.
Kurmanbek Akyshev, director of Kyrgyzstan's civil aviation authority, added that joining the convention would create the conditions for local airlines to buy and dry-lease aircraft on favourable terms.
“It happens that our carriers want to lease planes on preferential terms but are refused because Kyrgyzstan is not a party to the convention,” he explained.
All of the airlines of Kyrgyzstan, the smallest of the air travel markets of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), remain on the list of carriers banned in the European Union, making it especially important for the country to accede to the CTC, Akyshev said.
The Central Asian nation unilaterally introduced a countrywide Open Skies policy and fifth-freedom traffic rights in January 2019. Besides its restarting flag carrier Air Kyrgyzstan, other scheduled carriers in the country include Air Manas (recently dormant), Avia Traffic Company, and TezJet, while Sky KG Airlines is a passenger charter specialist. A number of cargo carriers are also active.
