ANGUS BATEY for Aviation Week

A corporate lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, Aoife O’Sullivan found her calling when she joined a new firm, Gates and Partners, toward the end of 2003. She was head of the company’s aircraft finance practice for 10 years when it merged with Kennedys Aviation; O’Sullivan held the same post there until, in 2015, she left to co-found The Air Law Firm. The London-based practice handles legal work across the aviation industry, but O’Sullivan’s personal focus has been on the business aviation sector.

She has been a member of the board of the British Business and General Aviation Association for more than a decade and, since 2019, has been the trade body’s chair. During that period the Association has established a series of working groups, looking at specific parts of the business aviation ecosystem and working to organize collective responses to shared challenges.

She spoke with The Weekly of Business Aviation
ahead of the BBGA’s 2023 conference, which will take place in London on March 2.
Q. What was it that appealed to you about aviation law—and within that, what specifically attracted you to business aviation?
A: I’ve always genuinely been fascinated by aviation, but it really gets in under your skin. To be a lawyer, and then to be a lawyer specifically in an industry as fascinating as aviation, it’s just the best thing in the world. I don’t think I would still be a lawyer if I hadn’t found aviation.
Q. What sort of work within aviation law do you perform?
A. We [The Air Law Firm] do leasing work, commercial airline stuff—but to be perfectly honest, I just prefer the private and business aviation. I head up the transactional side. For us to do a transaction, you’re typically dealing with six different jurisdictions; there’s usually about 25 or 30 people involved in helping to make it all happen. You come across the most incredible personalities and characters, and every single deal has a challenge. The commercial airline stuff is a lot more straightforward;
the leases are all quite similar to each other. In business
aviation, there’s no one transaction the same as another. It just keeps it interesting.
Q. How did your involvement with the BBGA begin, and
what made you want to step up from merely being a participant in the organization to a board member and, eventually, chair?
A: Being a lawyer in aviation, I would say 20 or 30% of it is the law, and the rest is about understanding the industry. You have to understand the issues, because it’s actually quite complicated. And if you don’t take the time to go out and understand the problems people are experiencing, then you’re really not much
good to them. So, when I was trying to set up the commercial aviation department [at Gates], I went out of my way to go and join all of the industry associations. That’s how it started, and then I just got more and more involved.
I like the approach of the BBGA. There’s a lot of unsung
heroes. There’s phenomenal work being done by the Association, and we need to promote it a bit more—just these brilliant, brilliant pieces of work in resolving some major issues for the industry, and in many cases the industry doesn’t even know that it’s all being sorted out. There is an element of giving back, and dedicating some time to the BBGA to do that—but what I get out
of it personally is an awful lot of knowledge I wouldn’t gather on a transaction. You’re exposed to an awful lot more, and you get to understand an awful lot more.
Q. You became chair ahead of a tumultuous time for aviation.
What has the Association been doing well, and what are the challenges that members are anxious for you to address at present?
A: When I was promoted to chair, I had no idea what I was taking on. I thought it would be basically just managing board meetings—and then Brexit hit, and then COVID hit, so it has been certainly a challenging ride. We’ve had some very interesting issues that have come up.