A Few Anecdotes

Our operations in Mauritius have given us an early opportunity to test the willingness of the local Authorities to support and assist in transactions. In 1994, we were honoured to have SIA as launch customer in the context of a B747-400 cross border lease. In the midst of completing the documentation, we discovered that we needed an amendment, albeit small, to the Civil Aviation Act in order to register the aircraft in Mauritius.

Meetings were held with the Ministry on a Monday and on the following Friday the amendment was approved by the Cabinet. SIA were impressed and has subsequently become our first repeat customer.

On a Friday evening, a new A320 operator advised us that it had two pilots, fresh from their A320 type conversion training, on duty the following Sunday. Their licences had to be validated by the DCA for operations on a Mauritius registered aircraft. Because the operator had just started to operate the A320, it only had a small pool of pilots type rated for this aircraft and would have had to cancel flights without these validations.

The DCA accepted to exceptionally validate the licences by fax, for a very strictly limited period, after taking a number of precautions. Pragmatism, commonsense and the ability to access the DCA after hours made the difference!

A few days before Christmas, a client wished to travel to Beijing. We needed to obtain over flight and landing clearances from the Chinese authorities via diplomatic channels! Wake up the Mauritius Embassy in Beijing! Many phone calls and a few sleepless nights later, we obtained the precious clearance.

The co-operation and assistance of both Governments , thanks to their friendly relationship, were vital in the success of this mission.