December 31, 2018

The provinces seem to have a lot of problems with the transfer of a number of heliport licenses for the operation of company – or hospital bound heliports, which before 2009, were issued under the regime of the Royal Decree on Structure and Use of Non-Designated Aerodromes (better known as BIGNAL), to a heliport license to be issued by ordinance by the province. According to a transitional law of 2008, which legally regulates the transfer of the BIGNAL licenses to a heliport permit or a heliport license, all eligible heliports should already have been provided with a provincial heliport permit or license in the year 2011.

Now, at the end of 2018, BIGNAL licenses for a number of existing heliports still need to be transformed into a provincial heliport license. Fortunately, the aforementioned transitional law stipulates that all existing BIGNAL licenses remain in full force until the province has issued a heliport permit or a heliport license.

In my opinion, the government should never have given up this task to the provinces, where aeronautical technical expertise is lacking in most cases.

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