A recent rulemaking paves the way for the industry to move toward a new electronic filing and distribution system for aircraft registration. The FAA hopes to fully implement the Civil Aviation Registry Electronic Services (CARES) system by year-end.

Released last month, the rulemaking facilitates online submissions for and issuances of aircraft registrations. “Electronic issuance of the certificates is more efficient and cost-effective than the traditional agency procedure of printing paper registration certificates and mailing them to aircraft owners and dealers,” the agency said.

The FAA explained that, currently, the registry issues more than 5,000 certificates printed on card stock per month and then it takes about seven to 10 business days for mailing.

“Due to the long delivery time required by using regular mail, the registry has had to create special priority processes to meet the demands of a changing fast-paced environment of the aviation industry. Costs involved in this process include printing, supplies, mailing, and manpower needed for sorting and distribution.”

With mounting delays in the process, Congress in the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 called on the FAA to upgrade the registry, including digitization of its functions.

“The FAA is modifying FAA regulations in a way to help the industry do business with today’s technology,” said Scott McCreary, aircraft practice group leader at McAfee & Taft and a member of NBAA’s tax committee and regulatory industry advisory group.

He noted that, for now, “the FAA has simply changed the governing regulations to allow use and submission of electronically executed documents and manually executed copies in certain circumstances…Once fully implemented, possibly by the end of the year, the system will accept documents, digitally executed and manually executed, electronically through CARES.”

NBAA expects that by modernizing the system, the FAA will be able to turn the registrations more quickly, reducing what can be months-long delays. “The regulatory change streamlines the FAA’s system quite a bit where they don’t have to generate a hard-copy printed certificate and mail it to the registered owner,” said McCreary. “It also eliminates the need for the prior registered owner selling an aircraft, who is no longer the owner, to pull that hard card, sign it, and mail it back to the FAA for processing. Electronic registration will eliminate a lot of those steps and costs by allowing for a lot of that processing to be done automatically.”