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The first meeting of the High-Level Committee (HLC) on Aircraft Leasing and Financing was held on 2 September 2026 under the chairmanship of Union Civil Aviation Minister Shri Ram Mohan Naidu, with officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Ministry of Finance, Department of Commerce, DGCA, RBI, IFSCA and industry associations.
The Committee was set up on an industry suggestion made at the second Aircraft Leasing Summit; it took up taxation, regulatory frameworks, availability of finance and ease of doing business, including rupee-denominated aircraft financing, clarity on the applicability of GAAR, and possible renegotiation of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement framework with Ireland.
Per the release, 422 assets - including 250 aircraft and 87 engines - have been leased through the IFSC and 474 leasing agreements signed; more than 85% of the fleet of Indian carriers is leased, and India is operationalising an airport every 45 days.
Both were signed at Cape Town on 16 November 2001. The Convention creates an international registry and a uniform set of creditor remedies for high-value mobile assets - aircraft, railway rolling stock, space assets - so that a lessor can enforce its interest across jurisdictions. India acceded to it in 2008, but without domestic implementing legislation the remedies were not reliably enforceable, and Indian leasing costs ran an estimated 8-10 percentage points higher than in comparable jurisdictions.
Enacted to give full domestic effect to the Cape Town Convention and its Aircraft Protocol, effective 1 May 2025. It overrides conflicting provisions of existing domestic law, including the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, and permits creditors to repossess, deregister or export aircraft after a two-month waiting period following a debtor's default or insolvency. For lessors based in GIFT City, transactions are treated as domestic - a deliberate nudge towards onshore leasing.
The statute that replaced the Aircraft Act, 1934 as the framework law for civil aviation. It provides for the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (safety and regulation), the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (security) and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (accident investigation). Aircraft registration and deregistration - the operative step in any repossession - run through the DGCA under this framework.
Constitutes IFSCA, the unified regulator that frames the aircraft leasing regulations applicable at GIFT IFSC. Aircraft leasing was among the activities IFSCA opened up at the IFSC after issuing a consultation paper on aircraft leasing regulations.
Unified regulator for financial products, financial services and financial institutions in India's International Financial Services Centres, established on 27 April 2020 under the IFSCA Act, 2019. It replaced the sectoral jurisdiction of RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA inside the IFSC; its board includes a nominee from each of those four regulators.
India's civil aviation safety regulator, a statutory body under the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, functioning under the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Registration and deregistration of aircraft - central to a lessor's ability to recover an asset - are DGCA functions.
Roadmap for developing an aircraft financing and leasing industry within India, prepared by a Working Group constituted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to examine the regulatory framework for aircraft financing and leasing.
Key: It identified the International Financial Services Centre at GIFT City as the location for the leasing ecosystem, recommended tax incentives, and proposed legislation to give full effect to the Cape Town Convention - the exact sequence that has since played out through IFSCA's aircraft leasing regulations and the 2025 Act. Its motivating statistic was India's near-total dependence on import leases.
Industry-government convening on building an onshore leasing ecosystem.
Key: The first Summit's principal industry ask was ratification of the Cape Town Convention, met by the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Act. The second Summit's principal ask was a High-Level Committee - met by this body, whose first meeting is the subject of this release.
An airline rarely buys its aircraft outright; it leases them from a lessor, which owns the asset and collects rentals. Because the asset is worth tens of millions of dollars and can physically fly out of any country overnight, lessors care above all about two things: whether they can repossess the aircraft quickly if the airline defaults, and how the lease rentals are taxed. Ireland became the world's dominant leasing hub by offering both - a favourable tax regime and a wide treaty network. India's answer has two parts: the Protection of Interests in Aircraft Objects Act, 2025 for enforceability, and GIFT IFSC for the tax and regulatory environment. The Committee's interest in renegotiating the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement framework with Ireland, and in clarifying whether the General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) apply to such structures, follows directly: as long as an Ireland-routed lease is cheaper after tax than a GIFT City one, the ecosystem will not shift onshore.
Simple Analogy: If two garages offer the same parking bay, the driver picks the one where the paperwork is simpler and the rent is taxed less. India has just fixed the lock on its garage door; the argument now is about the rent.
GS Paper 3 > Indian Economy > Infrastructure: Ports, Roads, Airports; and Investment Models
General Awareness > Financial Markets and Regulators
General Awareness > Current Affairs and Static GK
GIFT IFSC and aviation infrastructure recur regularly in Prelims and in banking general awareness.
Under the Cape Town Convention's Aircraft Protocol, airframes, aircraft engines and helicopters - each capable of separate registration of an international interest, which is why the engine count is reported separately from the aircraft count.
General Anti-Avoidance Rules - Indian tax provisions allowing the authorities to disregard arrangements whose main purpose is obtaining a tax benefit. Uncertainty over their application to leasing structures is one of the issues the Committee took up.
Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement - a bilateral treaty allocating taxing rights between two countries. The India-Ireland framework matters because most aircraft leased to Indian carriers have historically been routed through Irish lessors.
A unit set up in an International Financial Services Centre, regulated by IFSCA rather than by the domestic sectoral regulator, and treated for many purposes as a non-resident.