Remember VHS vs. Batamax? Business aircraft charter saw tremendous growth in the 1990s and received another boost after 9/11/2001 when airline travel was extremely restricted. Major corporations and fractional companies like NetJets, FlexJet and others needed to be confident that the companies operating the business jets they chartered had the highest level of safety.
Although the U.S. market had several quality auditing firms performing independent safety audits, the charter community and the buyers of charter, were desperately seeking a globally accepted solution to the myriad of audits and standards being utilized. With the support of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and in conjunction with numerous business aircraft operators and regulators around the globe, International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) developed the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operators (IS-BAO), and introduced it to the aviation community in 2002.
IS-BAO was designed to establish a professional safety code of practice for flight departments worldwide, developed by the industry, for the industry. This safety standard has applicability for domestic and international flight operations, private as well as charter, and scales from one aircraft operators to the largest fleets. Through tremendous efforts over the last 7 years, hundreds of business jet operators have gone through or are going through the IS-BAO registration process. Regulators around the world recognize the validity of the IS-BAO standard.
In 2009 a second standard was announced by the Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF), a new organization developed by the National Air Transportation Association (NATA). ACSF will limit audits under their standard to only members of ACSF.
ARG/US, Inc. has been a globally recognized and respected data collection, analysis and auditing firm of aircraft operators for over a decade. ARG/US has declined to endorse or join ACSF as they see no value in introducing another standard created by a U.S. trade association that has no acceptance outside of the United States. Furthermore they feel the ACSF plan dilutes the enormous efforts by IBAC in achieving global acceptance of IS-BAO.
The wounded (by the collapse of JetDirect) aircraft management/charter industry does not need a battle like this.
