Aviation
The Firm has a strong Aviation practice advising national airlines, aircraft owners, managers, lessors, lessees, financers and aircraft MRO facilities. Our experience spans structured sale/lease-back transactions, financed leases, sale and purchase deals, management operations and aircraft registrations giving us a thorough knowledge of the aviation business. This enables us to provide seamless legal solutions to commerical, corporate, tax and security concerns of international lending syndicates, lessors and business jet owners attracted by the fiscal advantages and robust legal system of Malta.
Despite the recent global financial slowdown, deliveries of new Airbus and Boeing aircraft in the next 20 years is expected to reach more than 25,000 narrow-body and wide-body aircraft. The private and corporate business jet sector is experiencing a period of unprecedented demand with very long waiting lists on the order books of some manufactures.
Building on the success of its shipping register, which has grown into the 8th largest world-wide and 2nd largest in Europe, Malta is committed to establishing itself as a leading aircraft register.
The island’s international reputation in financial services, attractive fiscal regime, wide network of double-tax treaties and technical infrastructure makes Malta an appealing jurisdiction for international aircraft finance and leasing companies. Security over aircraft is normally granted through a mortgage registered in terms of law and a pledge over the shares of the owner-SPV in favour of the finance parties or security trustee. Government is also in the process of ratifying the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment.
As a Member State of the European Union Malta adopts the standards of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) meaning that a Maltese certification represents the highest standards in safety. Maltese-registered aircraft operators can also benefit from liberalised access to commercial air traffic rights within the EU and have easier access to the traffic rights agreed from time to time between EU members and third countries.
The dedicated team at Fenech & Fenech enjoys a leading and long-standing reputation in aviation law which is unrivalled locally and has been involved in almost all types of aviation-related work from structured asset finance to the issue of commercial Air Operator Certificates and Air Services Licences. We regulatory act for buyers and sellers of aircraft, lessors and lessees, banks and flag carriers in their fleet management requirements. Notably, Fenech & Fenech represents the national airline in all matters relating to the financing and leasing of its fleet assets.
The team has also represented a leading international MRO provider in connection with the building of a 60,000 sq. mtr. wide-body aircraft hangar facility in Malta. With an investment of Euro 55 million, the new state-of-the-art maintenance hangars are among the largest single industrial construction projects in Malta in recent years.
Partners Nicolai Vella Falzon and Joseph Ghio have recently updated and revised the Malta Chapter in Longman’s ‘Aircraft Finance: Registration, Security and Enforcement’ edited by McBain and Hames.
The firm is proud to be an Associate Sponsor of the 24th Annual Geneva International Forum on Aircraft Finance and Commercial Aviation being held between the 24 and 26 March 2010. For more information please download the conference brochure here.