The same logic applies to lubricants and other technical consumables — Page 32, Lesson 56

I want to walk you through what happens with taxes and customs in international aviation, and then we'll get into the certificates, registration, and licences that keep the whole system standardised. Let's start with the tax side. States are asked to exempt fuel, lubricants, and other technical consumables that are taken on board an aircraft in a State other than the State of registry — that's the State where the aircraft is registered — providing those supplies are for consumption in flight. So if an aircraft registered in one country lands in another and tops up its tanks, that fuel shouldn't be taxed, as long as it's going to be burned in flight. The same logic applies to lubricants and other technical consumables. Beyond that, States are also asked to reduce or eliminate taxes on international air transport — that's the fares — and to grant, reciprocally, to air transport enterprises of other States, exemption from taxation on income and profits. So the idea is mutual: if my country doesn't tax your airline's income, your country doesn't tax mine. Now, within the area of customs duty and excise charges, Annex 9 — that's the Facilitation annex — requires States to apply procedures that allow expeditious handling of goods and cargo intended for import, or which are passing through. And the establishment of 'free zones' is encouraged. A free zone is essentially an area where goods can be held without customs duties being applied until they actually enter the country's market. Now let's move to section 2.26: Aircraft Certificates, Registration and Licences. This is where the annexes start to do the heavy lifting. Annex 7 — Aircraft Nationality and Registration Markings — requires Contracting States to apply standard procedures for registration. It includes the format of registration marks and nationality symbols, including the size and where these are to be displayed on the aircraft. So there's a standard way to mark an aircraft so you can tell its nationality at a glance. The annex also calls for the registration of all aircraft, and it provides a sample of a certificate of registration for States to use. Then Annex 8 — Airworthiness of Aircraft — requires States to provide a Certificate of Airworthiness for each registered aircraft, declaring that the aircraft is fit to fly. That's the document that says the aircraft is safe to operate. Now, under the terms of Annex 1 — Personnel Licensing — SARPs are established. SARPs stands for Standards and Recommended Practices. These require each State to apply standardisation in the licensing of personnel involved in international aviation, including flight crew members — that's pilots and flight engineers — plus air traffic controllers and maintenance technicians. The overriding purpose of this standardisation is to ensure that everyone involved in air transport operations is licensed to common standards and able to operate throughout the world. That generates greater trust in aviation on the part of the traveller. So when you step onto an aircraft in a foreign country, you can trust that the crew and the controllers meet the same standard you'd expect at home. But here's a critical point: a licence issued by the authority in one State is not automatically valid in another State. So your pilot's licence from one country doesn't just work everywhere. In this instance, the annex requires States to establish procedures for the validation of licences issued in other States, and it defines the method by which such validation shall be annotated. So there's a formal process to get a foreign licence recognised, and the way that validation is recorded is also standardised. Let me tie this together. The whole system rests on standardisation: standard registration marks, standard certificates of airworthiness, standard licensing, and standard validation procedures. That's what makes international aviation trustworthy and workable.