Business View Magazine | February 2020

86 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2020 by transport safety authorities in countries that are signatory to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, the foundation for the global civil aviation regime first established in 1944 by 52 countries, and which, today, has 193 members. “What these six member associations recognized was that there was no association or organization representing the interests of business aircraft operators at ICAO; business aircraft being any aircraft that an individual user/operator uses to get from Point A to Point B for work or business-related purposes,” explains Kurt Edwards, IBAC’s Director General. “And they wanted to make sure that our industry be present there to ensure that the interests of our operators were being taken into account, because not every airplane that’s flying around the world is a large, commercial transport aircraft.” Today, IBAC’s membership is made up of 14 national or regional business aviation associations from around the world. Its largest association is the U.S.-based National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), with approximately 11,000 members. Other associations represent business aviation operators in Canada, Brazil, Australia, Japan, China, India, the Middle East, Africa, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as the European Business Aviation Association which covers the entire European Union. IBAC has 11 full-time staff based around the world, plus several contract employees. “Our principal office is in Montreal,” Edwards notes. “We have three full-time employees there, and the remainder are spread out in the U.S., Brazil, Belgium, and the UK.” Edwards explains that IBAC has three core areas of focus: “The first is our work in Montreal with the International Civil Aviation Organization and its bodies around the world.” As an example, he relates a situation that took place in 2009, when IBAC took it upon itself to redraft and update