In our newsletter issued on January 6 of this year we reported on what appeared to be a suspension of the requirement to file the Annual Airworthiness Information Report (AAIR) as required by CARs section 501.03. Users trying to file their report online were simply greeted with a message saying that the report was “not currently required.” No explanation was given at the time for this move by Transport Canada.
The regulator has now made it official through NCR-003-2023 (the official procedure used to suspend a CARs provision) that the requirement for aircraft owners to file a report is only temporarily suspended, and that aircraft owners must still retain the required information for filing at a later date. This exemption, however, is not applicable to owners of RPAS (drones) having a Mean Take Off Weight (MTOW) of 25 kg or less or ultralight aeroplanes.
In the official filing, TC states exempted aircraft owners “…will be required to provide the AAIR report for 2022 at a later date.” Details as to when the “later date” might occur are not provided, but the exemption is due to expire on March 30, 2024.
This leads to speculation that the exception is due to the lack of resources, human or otherwise, to process the data.