INTRODUCTION
For many, aircraft evoke a visceral thrill and sense of romance as they push the limits of
human experience and transcend geographical boundaries on a regular basis. To aviation
financiers however, the inherent internationality and mobility of aircraft equipment, i.e.
airframes, aircraft engines and helicopters,1 present special challenges. The quality of
internationality is intensified by the fact that several capital markets often finance a single
aircraft given the airline industry’s heavy dependence on external finance,2 as well as the
industry trend of airframes being dealt in and financed separately from aircraft engines.3
The internationality and mobility of aviation finance makes it difficult for creditors to
exert a degree of control over the equipment that they finance and protect themselves
against the possibility of unauthorised movement, especially when they are not even
well-positioned to know when movement takes place.4
This difficulty is exacerbated by the lack of uniformity across jurisdictions with regards
to secured transactions law. Without uniformity, the means of creating security interests
(“creation”), their effectiveness against third parties (“perfection”), their priority vis-à-vis