The Russian Business Aircraft Association (ADA) is currently involved in writing new legislation for Russian operators, according to ADA chairman, Eugene Bakhtin.

Members of ADA met the representative of the new State Service of Air Transport (GSGA), Valery Selevanov, at the association's annual meeting on October 18. Bakhtin, who is also general director of AVCOM, told EBAN: "We made some progress in dialogue with Mr Selevanov, and at the moment we are participating in a new draft of Federal Aviation Rules with the Russian authorities, on behalf of the association, to make it much easier for the operator of such aircraft. We hope that it will be done within the next couple of months. It has been preliminarily approved, and will go for full approval."

Currently, Russian business aircraft operators are required to operate under the same legislation as governs airlines, which means nearly one hundred licences and a slow and convoluted network of authorities.

Bakhtin said that moderate progress had been made in improving matters for GA since the ADA was formed in 1997: Business jet operators no longer have to give notice if crossing air traffic control zones.

The ADA is comprised of 15 Russian operators who operate above eighty per cent of business flights over Russia, according to its chairman. "The purpose of the association is to combine and to accumulate all activity in the field of the regulations with the authorities, making proposals for the FAA rules, and so on.

"The main headache for us in private documentation and as a result we need to have the commercial rights, some kind of licences for each city pair or something. We did talk about how to tackle this, how to make business aviation more free from extra legislation," Bakhtin said. According to current Russia air legislation, a non-scheduled operator must obtain licences for every commercial flight operation for each city pair he operates, including getting "no objections" from any regular air carrier who operates the same route. The application must be submitted to the Russian State Services of Civil Aviation at least two working days before the flight. The licence is then given (or rejected) by the RSSCA. The same procedure applies on business flights. "Sometimes, this fact just kills corporate flights and the air-taxi business," commented Bakhtin. "The RBAA is making all efforts to change the situation for the better."

The ADA also discussed the issue of future noise regulations, which could preclude Russian aircraft from entering western Europe. "We agreed that noise restrictions will limit the use of Russian-made planes over western Europe, and we agreed to continue work with the Russian manufacturers for the possible modernisation of aircraft, or perhaps to accelerate the production of new aircraft which will meet such requirements," said Bakhtin.

"There are two obstacles to western aircraft," he explained. "First of all, they are at a high price which cannot be accepted by the Russian client - I mean in terms of the client who charters the aircraft. Secondly, there is a high customs tax on imported aircraft."

There are some Falcons and 125s in Russia, mostly belonging to the corporate air departments of large companies, but they are outnumbered by cheaper Yak-40s and Tu-134. Designed in the 1960s, they would certainly fail to meet the proposed 2002 noise restrictions. More than half of Russian business flights are made to foreign airspace, so the issue has the potential to cripple the industry, which at present is said to be the only sector of Russian aviation experiencing growth.

Bakhtin said that the problem of noise compliance was "not really Mr Selevanov's responsibility", but said that he did listen to what members had to say.

On the subject of import taxes I am quite skeptical that we can make any difference," he said. "but mainly that depends on the government. Regarding regulations, as I said, we are working very closely with the authorities. The main goal which we would like to achieve in the future is in the area of regulations, to make flights easier without any bureaucracy."The instability and uncertainty of Russia's government bodies is an obstacle to reform in the GA sector. Within the last two years, Bakhtin said, the State Service of Air Transport, the Russian regulatory body, has been transformed three or four times.

"After each reorganisation there are some obvious disadvantages, a sense of starting from the beginning. The division of Mr Selevanov has been in place for longer, but the essential problem is that the general aviation authority has just been reorganised from what it was called before, the Federal Services for Transport," he said.

Mutability goes all the way to the seat of power in Russia, currently. "Putin, has been in power only 100 days," Bakhtin said, "so it is difficult to tell what his influence will be. And business aviation is not a priority at the moment."