11 November 2013

Opposition to removing industry ‘red tape’ is political point-scoring

At the end of last week, the UK Government and the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) announced plans to strip away unnecessary bureaucracy for the UK General Aviation sector.

This provoked a strong reaction from the opposition, with Labour’s Shadow aviation spokesman Gordon Marsden claiming that the plans would compromise Britain’s border security, and create a situation that could be exploited by ‘would-be terrorists and criminals’’.

It’s a shame to see a move which will help shift an extremely valuable UK industry towards growth being exploited for political point-scoring.

A cut in red tape for General Aviation can only stimulate SME economy and increase competitiveness in business aviation (where the UK is striving to return to growth, and to take the lead in Europe).

In terms of security impact, private aviation companies know far more about their clients than scheduled airlines. We make it our business to know as much as possible about the customer, and passengers are strictly vetted before they even get to booking stage.

API details (Advanced Passenger Information) are always provided for private jet flights and passed to the Border Agency in advance – and are fully available to S015 (counter terrorism command). In addition, the captain personally interacts with passengers before departure, and is ultimately responsible for the safety of the flight.

As a private jet captain myself, I know that I am often best-qualified to make first-hand security assessments at the final flight stage.

Due to the comparatively high value nature of private jet transactions, strict fraud checks and background research is always carried out on clients and their passengers.

In this case, the Shadow minister’s comments appear to be party-political wrangling with little hard evidence provided to reinforce them.

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