Originally Posted by
Lead Balloon
Because section 27 of the Australian Civil Aviation Act says one is required.
The Act makes special provision for applications to CASA for AOCs authorising the operation of foreign registered commercial aircraft in to and out of Australian territory, but at the end of the day it's an AOC issued by CASA under the section that every other AOC is issued by CASA. (I won't complicate things by talking about NZ-registered aircraft or 27A permissions.)
Seriously? Don't you mean an operations spec? The logic of this is that an airline would need an new AOC to fly into every other foreign country. That could be 100 + for some airlines. I know you folks have a high opinion of your system down there but that's not how the world works.