An Overview of International Civil Aviation Arbitrations

International Civil Aviation is a vital global commercial industry that tends to connect the global market, this makes it more complex and expensive to operate a business in this industry. This civil aviation industry includes passengers, airlines, aircraft manufacturers, and airport authorities all around the globe, all of these are regulated by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Being diversified with various regulations and laws under public international law and private international law, this industry needs a vital dispute settlement mechanism to adapt to its requirements with low cost and confidentiality. This question is answered through arbitration as it provides essentially what this industry needs which are party autonomy, confidentiality, cost-efficient and flexible dispute settlement mechanism. The International Civil Aviation industry needs Arbitration as it involves more technical persons to adjudicate because all judges may not have the expertise and knowledge in the field of aviation, further Arbitration makes it more flexible and has no time-consuming procedures like conventional courts. Major aircraft manufacturers tend to choose arbitration as their primary dispute settlement mechanism between client airlines because each and every aircraft designed for the airlines with their registered country’s safety specifications will involve millions of dollars in cost and market competition decisions. Each Airport Authority of every nation will have internal dispute settlement mechanisms in which arbitration deals with disputes arising from passengers, selected airlines, and air traffic control related. Recent developments in the judiciary and global markets made it mandatory to settle disputes primarily with arbitrations and it further added it as a buffer layer before conventional litigation for avoiding pending litigations which can be observed by the decrease of 12% approx. in both international and domestic courts.