The Asian Business Aviation Association (AsBAA) is rolling out an Illegal Charter Reporting System as part of its effort to tackle what it sees as "the serious threats to air charter safety and the public that are often difficult to identify due to the use of deceptive and convoluted agreements." AsBAA began formally collecting and reporting suspected illegal charter information to civil aviation authorities in August. A signatory to the global Air Charter Safety Alliance formed in 2020 to combat illegal operations, AsBAA said its efforts have the support of legal advisors, charter industry representatives, and the press.
In 2020, AsBAA and global law firm HFW jointly released the results of their illegal charter survey, which found that 71 percent of the respondents believed illegal charter had harmed their businesses and 90 percent believed that local authorities were not doing enough to combat such operations.
The hotline is part of an overarching strategy of AsBAA's Illegal Charter Task Force, which has laid out a number of goals. These include working with civil aviation authorities to provide guidance on avoiding illegal operations; working with legislative bodies to ensure civil aviation authorities have the right tools to address illegal charter; educating authorities and the public about illegal charter; and assisting enforcement efforts of civil aviation authorities through data collection and reporting.