7th St. Petersburg Air Law Conference

On October 6, 2017, The 7th Scientific Air Law Conference was held at the Yusupov Palace in Saint. Petersburg, Russia

The organizers of the conference were the National Association of Air Law and the Institute of Air and Space Law AEROHELP, with the support of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation and the Federal Agency for Air Transport (Russian acronym Rosaviatsiya). The scientific partner of the conference was the Saint Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation.

More than 100 delegates from 12 countries took part in the Conference, including leaders, specialists, leading scientists and lawyers representing state enterprises, airlines and airports, scientific institutes, universities, law firms, research centers, as well as state authorities: the Federal Agency for Air Transport and the Ministry of Transport of Russia, the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University (Netherlands), the Ozyegin University (Turkey), the Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary), St. Petersburg State University, Moscow Domodedovo Airport, St. Petersburg Pulkovo Airport, Sarajevo International Airport, State Research Institute of Aviation Systems-GosNIIAS (Russia), the St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation, Federal State Unitary Enterprise “State ATM Corporation”, the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), the Boeing Company (Belgium), Rossiya Airlines, Aeroflot – Russian Airlines, S7 Airlines, Volga-Dnepr Airlines, NordStar Airlines, UVT-Aero, Gulf Air (Bahrain), Lufthansa Group (Belgium) and other organizations.

The main topics of the conference were: management of the aviation market and cooperation in the field of competition, cyber attacks as a new threat in international civil aviation, the future of drones, innovative financial proposals for lessors, as well as new trends in the responsibility of the air carrier.

The  conference began with a plenary session, faturing State Secretary - Deputy Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Sergey Aristov as welcoming speaker. Mr. Aristov emphasized  the timeliness of the conference and, having identified its main issues, became the first speaker of the panel discussion 
"Controlling the Aviation Market: Cooperation in relation to Competition".

One of the most discussed topics of the Conference was the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAS), discussed at the discussion panel "Drones. The future has come." The moderator of this panel was Gleb Babintsev, General Director of UAS Operators and Developers Association “AERONET”. The topic aroused a lot of questions, which the main speaker of this section, Andrei Shnyrev, Deputy Head of the State Policy in Civil Aviation Department, Ministry of Transport of Russia, answered in full. Mr. Shnyrev also pointed in his speech that, in parallel with the active development of this field of aviation, the Ministry of Transport is working to improve the regulatory framework in the field of  the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Of great interest was the presentation of the Director for Technical and Legal Affairs in Europe of Boeing, Mildred Tregeller, on "Cooperation in the whole global aviation community". Ms. Tregeler highlighted the issues related to the increasing role of cybersecurity in the aviation sector, spoke about the risks associated with cyberattacks and stressed the need to create an appropriate concept or basic rules for aviation cybersecurity.

In the final part of the meeting, the President of the National Air Law Association, Doctor in Law, Professor Sergei Yuriev briefly summed up the results of all panel discussions, noting the professionalism of the speakers and the relevance and significance of the issues raised at the Conference.

The organizers prepared a rich and diverse program for the Conference, and at the end presented the book of the former director of the ICAO Legal Department and the director of the Institute of Air and Space Law of McGill University (Canada) Michael Milde "International Air Law and ICAO" (Translated from English. Edited by Oleg Aksamentov, publisher AEROHELP, St. Petersburg, 2017).

Active support in the issues of logistics and organizational of the 7th Conference on Air Law were provided by industry partners: Rossiya Airlines, AviaPort, North-West Regional Center for Aeronautical Information and Lukiaviatrans Airlines, for which the organizers express a separate appreciation.

The National Association of Air Law and the Institute of Air and Space Law AEROHELP thank all delegates for participating in the The Seventh Scientific Air Law Conference and invite everyone to the next conference to be held in St. Petersburg in 2018.