Absolutely,
You have one flag of convenience operator based in Australia that was on the Sierra Leone register and AOC. Not one other major regulator in the world would permit a Sierra Leone aircraft even in their airspace. Yet they were here. When that is finally closed out what do they do, go and get an AOC in the Philipines. Not Australia! There could be of course two reasons for that.
1. The AOC and registering of the aircraft in the Philipines could be done "easily" ( read into that what you want)
2. They were not capable of getting one in Australia and had to go elsewhere.
Probably a combination of the two.
Of course Ozjet were taken over to try and fix this but to date no success in extending the AOC to the 727's. In fact they have been out and about trying to get other operators to place the Australian Registered aircraft on an AOC or continue to operate them (NJE)
While I don't place Strategic in the same basket. It is clearly an Australian Based operation also not subject to Australian Regs and should be.
Last edited by Rudder; 18th Mar 2009 at 01:12.