8th Beaumont International Aviation Conference

Citation

Krausz, A. (2006), "8th Beaumont International Aviation Conference", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 78 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2006.12778fac.001

8th Beaumont International Aviation Conference

8th Beaumont International Aviation Conference

Keywords: Conferences, Aviation insurance

“The sun never sets on Clyde & Co's offices” were some of the opening remarks from Senior Partner, Michael Payton, in welcoming some 250 delegates from 60 countries to the 8th Beaumont International Conference. With a dedicated aviation practice of more than 60 lawyers world-wide and with recent offices opening in Moscow, Shanghai, New York and Los Angeles, the position of the firm as the pre- eminent law firm in aviation has been established and was described as alive and thriving.

Philip Bass kicked off the conference with “The aviation insurance market in 2006” and was joined by what he described as a panel of international stars. Trends highlighted by the panel included:

• •

  reduced frequency of catastrophic losses due to systems such as TCAS;

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  increase in the size of liability awards and attritional losses – typically in the US awards stand at US$4 million for a death;

• •

  uncertainty arising out of larger aircraft such as the Airbus A380 with its wider wingspan, new materials used in construction of the Boeing Dreamliner, which are as yet untested and the growth of owner operated VLJ's, which represent an unquantifed/absorbed exposure;

• •

  Progressive consolidation in the market with significantly fewer insurers and brokers than 25 years ago and the emergence of two types of capital in the market. Firstly, long term dedicated risk absorbers and secondly, short term opportunistic traders such as hedge funds; and

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  A need to consider future issues such as terrorism, hurricanes and global climate change as well as pandemics such as bird flu, which had the potential to ground 50 per cent of aircraft.

Uncertainty with respect to the future was reflected by an interesting ad hoc debate between Tony Medniuk, CEO of Global Aerospace and Bill Smith, Deputy Chairman of Aon Aviation with regard to their differing opinions on the importance of risk reflective policy pricing.

Ross Williams introduced an exploration of current issues in insurance and reinsurance.

James Healy-Pratt, general counsel from Amlin Plc, talked of “forum non conveniens motions hitting the plaintiff forum shoppers where it hurts” and approached an interesting talk by reference to both the plaintiff and defendant angles in order to reach a conclusion that winning forum arguments is not a certainty for either side.

Ken Walder, Chairman of the Aviation Insurance Clauses Group provided an interesting insight into the workings of the Group and how clauses develop. Together with Prof. Wolf Müller-Rostin, Lawyer/Director of Lufthansa's Captive Insurer Delvag, they discussed the imminent arrival of AVN48C and AVN52.

David Gleave from Aviation Safety Investigations stimulated delegates with telling illuminations of scenarios where air law is inadequate in setting out the best procedure to follow in avoiding accidents.

Following on from accident avoidance, David Willcox highlighted that despite increasing safety, larger aircraft meant post-accident procedures were increasingly more important as he introduced an expert panel as part of a post-accident scenario, mentioning that it was not just the compensation which needed to be right but everything else too.

Key points arising during the scenario included the importance of pre- determined airline incident plans; relationships with the media in advance of incidents; early consideration of the incident's environmental aspects and instruction of experts; ensuring the availability of translators and urgent consideration of humanitarian considerations and payments of interim compensation.

The liability update moderated by David Clark identified trends from around the globe. Sarah Catchpole talked of a mixed bag of frustration, patience and fun and not only because of being based in Rio. The trend in Brazil was to be litigious, adventurous and unpredictable. While in Argentina, liability limits under Conventions were often deemed to be unconstitutional, which manifested in excessive moral damages being awarded at first instance with a wait of 10-15 years for a matter to get to the Supreme Court. Maylis

Casati-Ollier updated the delegates on the awaited judgement from the Court de Cassation regarding the PIA forum decision. Andrew Harakas, stated litigation to be flavour of the year in the US, primarily due to non-US originating aviation litigation gaining vigour through continued forum shopping. Sohair Mustafa, updating on the Middle East pointed out that the mentality of “forgive and forget” was changing as rogue lawyers from the USA and Europe were educating people on the ability to sue and recover.

Captain Dr Jock Lowe, current Master of the Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators and former Chief Captain of the BA Concorde fleet regaled delegates with anecdotes including entertaining Concorde stories and what really happened to the Korean 747 shot down by the former USSR. The serious side to his talk highlighted better ways to deal with safety and air accident investigation.

Air accident investigation and criminal proceedings was the subject of intensive discussion by a panel moderated by Joe Goodridge. Joe introduced the session by mentioning that there were three key purposes to accident investigation:

1. 1.

   preventing future accidents;

2. 2.

   compensation of victims; and

3. 3.

   prosecution of those responsible.

However, there was often a conflict between the official and penal investigations and while there were attempts to resolve this, in practice this was not always effective. Indeed, Pablo Mendes de Leon, director of the Air Law Institute at Leiden University, warned of the tension between the need to apportion blame and the spirit of Article 13 of the Chicago Convention. Prof. Dr Iur. Regula Dettling-Ott went on to say that in her experience in Switzerland, the confusion of introducing criminal investigations into the civil accident enquiry had the net effect of impairing the investigation of the accident because of the need to advise clients that, if they did not exercise restraint, then there could be criminal implications. Accordingly, rather than being an investigation to learn and prevent future incidents it was more akin to a legal procedure. Tudor Owen, barrister from 9 to 12 Bell Yard Chambers gave a warning that flight safety can suffer as a result of the “blame and fame” culture.

John Balfour introduced the session on current regulatory issues affecting airlines by highlighting a trend in economic deregulation, which was being met by reregulation in other areas such as competition law, security and consumer and environmental protection.

Louise-Helene Senecal from Air Canada talked of disability legislation in Canada and the US warning of onerous obligations on airlines trying to stay in business and suggested that a government wanting a social policy should provide appropriate subsidies. The need to strike a fair balance was reflected by all speakers including Geoff Elsbury from the CAA and Martin Barrow, director of Malaysia Airlines. Jan Ernst de Groot from KLM pleaded for an open approach bearing in mind developments in society.

Regulation was also an aspect of the panel session on issues arising out of aircraft leasing and financing, with Lorne Clark presenting a fascinating insight into the origins and purpose of the Cape Town Convention and Siva Subramaniam discussing the technical workings of the Convention in creating more certainty for banks and lessors and thereby decreasing financing costs.

Darcy Beamer-Downie captured imaginations with an illustrated talk on space tourism, which has been fuelled by the award of the X Prize.

The conference then built to a crescendo of drama before the curtain was drawn with the drama of a live mock US District Court trial together with jury in respect of an airline passenger claim. Notable performances were given by John Samiotis as Court Clerk, Lisa Tomas as Airline Stewardess, Louise-Helene Senecal as Claimant and two of our new US partners from the New York office, Andrew Harakas and Chris Carlsen as Judge and Defence Attorney, respectively.

Andrew Krausz