A Word From the Director General
Kurt Edwards
I’m writing as LABACE in Sao Paulo is wrapping up. This year’s edition, the 20th, took place at a new location, Campo de Marte Airport. What a difference! Better layout, bigger space with room to expand. Easier access. Flat (odd to say, but folks who have been to LABACE at Congonhas will understand). Great look to the show. And lots of energy among a large group of attendees. Congratulations to ABAG on a successful show in a country where business aviation is seeing important growth!
The IS-BAH Programme received important recognition by the ICAO Council which approved its inclusion in the next edition of the Global Aviation Safety Plan, joining IS-BAO. Capt. Hurley shares more details below. In short, this is significant acknowledgement of the programme at the global level where States gather to develop the rules of the world’s air transport system.
We’re looking forward to and planning for the 42nd ICAO Assembly in late September and early October. IBAC will have the largest delegation representing business aviation in its history, including representatives from __ Member Associations and __ Industry Partners. We will prepare the delegation over the next two months and are excited to see the global business aviation industry well represented at civil aviation’s most important gathering.
ICAO and Sustainability
Capt. Claude Hurley, Director, Environment & Flight Operations
Planning for IBAC’s participation in the upcoming ICAO Assembly is well underway. IBAC continues to coordinate with other industry associations to co-sponsor key working papers (WPs). Co-sponsoring WPs is not only an effective way to build support for proposed outcomes, but as these are published over the next month or so, it'll gives an early sense to States of industry consensus on specific issues of concern (such as on GNSS vulnerabilities).
The Assembly is also a once in every three years opportunity for ICAO’s full membership of 193 Member States to endorse decisions recently made by the ICAO Council. One such decision was made on the 3rd of July this year, when the ICAO Council approved the next (2026-2028) edition of the Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP). This is worth noting as IBAC’s International Standard for Business Aircraft Handling (IS-BAH) programme was listed for the first time in the GASP (section 5.2.8.2 refers) as an "ICAO-recognized industry evaluation programme”, joining IBAC’s IS-BAO programme which had been previously recognized. Congratulations to the IS-BAH community!
Industry Partner Programme
Leo Knaapen, Head, Industry Partner Programme
- IPP MEMBER GROWTH: A welcome trend continues: yet another UK-based operator has joined our global cause, joining with ECHO3, Affinity Aviation, Gama Aviation, Nerd.aero and Corporate Jet Investor to increase our UK footprint to six organizations – whilst representing more than 20% of our total membership of 27 members.
- 42nd ICAO ASSEMBLY: I’m pleased to report our IBAC Delegation has now been recruited to represent Business Aviation at the upcoming 42nd Session of the ICAO Assembly. It promises to be IBAC’s largest delegation ever -- numbering some 30 delegates -- and featuring a strong blend of IPP members and Member Associations from across the globe. Like all Industry Observer organizations, ICAO recently submitted its accreditation request to the ICAO Secretary-General for review and approval. A42 is scheduled to occur 23 September – 03 October in Montreal Canada.
- IAF/04 SESSION SAVE THE DATE: The 4th session of the Industry Advisory Forum is set:
Thursday, 16 October 2025 @15h00-17h30
Las Vegas Convention Center – Room tbd
A formal invitation shall be issued to IPP members very shortly and a preliminary agenda will be issued beforehand, of course. Kindly note that attendance is restricted to IPP members and IBAC Member Associations only – one seat per organization.
IS-BAO
Andrew Karas, IS-BAO Programme Director
- The next Business Aviation Security course is scheduled for 2-3 October with early bird pricing ending 4th September. Registration is open here: https://tools.ibac.org/workshops/110/register
- IS-BAO Recurrent Workshop is available 30 September – 1 October with registration at https://tools.ibac.org/workshops
- LABACE 2025 was a great success and thanks to the IS-BAO operators that stopped by the IBAC stand. The new CORE Risk Management programme that is now in development was highlighted at LABACE. More details on this new online course are coming soon and you may sign up for updates from the CORE web page here: https://ibac.org/core
IS-BAH
Terry Yeomans, Programme Director
The IS-BAH workshop scheduled for 19-20 August (Fundamentals) is currently full, but slots are available for the 23-24 September (Fundamentals) and the 20-21 August (Auditing) workshop has remaining slots.
- The 2nd EASA Ground Handling Implementation Webinar is planned for 23 September 2025. We recommend that affected member associations recommend their members to sign up early for this but currently the registration process is not open.
- EBAA is hosting an online webinar on 11 September 15:00 – 16:00 (CEST) regarding the new EC ground handling regulation. Speakers from EASA, and IBAC’s Terry Yeomans, Director of IS-BAH, will participate. Registration and further details are available here: https://www.ebaa.org/events/ground-handling-mandate/
- Following the recent announcement of the dates and location for EBACE in 2026, we can now confirm the next IS-BAH Standards Board will take place in Geneva on Tuesday 26th May 2026.
Source: https://us11.campaign-archive.com
