Aviation Registry Group appoints David Colindres as vice chairman

Aviation Registry Group (ARG) has appointed David Colindres as vice chairman, the company announced. Colindres will retain his position as president of the San Marino Aircraft Registry (SMAR) while assuming new group-level responsibilities, and he will also serve on ARG's executive board, overseeing the operations of the group's registry portfolio as a whole.

ARG's international registry portfolio currently includes The Registry of Aruba, the San Marino Aircraft Registry, and the Gibraltar Aircraft Registry, the most recent addition. "I am honoured to take on this expanded responsibility within Aviation Registry Group while continuing to lead the San Marino Aircraft Registry," said Colindres. "Each jurisdiction has its own regulatory framework and identity, and our objective is to build on those individual strengths while ensuring that we continue providing the level of safety, compliance and service expected by aircraft owners and operators around the world."

ARG was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Miami, with more than 30 years of experience in civil aviation regulation, technical services and safety oversight. The company has operated The Registry of Aruba since 1995 and the San Marino Aircraft Registry since 2012, with Gibraltar the latest addition to its portfolio. SMAR was established in 2012 through a public-private partnership between the Republic of San Marino and Aviation Registry Group, and Colindres has been credited with playing a central role in the registry's development and international growth. Sir Jorge Colindres, founder and chairman of Aviation Registry Group, said: "David has played an important role in the growth of the San Marino Aircraft Registry and brings extensive experience in both the regulatory and commercial realities of international aircraft registration. David's appointment as vice chairman and his position on our executive board are an important part of that next stage."

Appointing a sitting registry president to a group-wide executive role is a common way multi-jurisdiction registry operators try to align standards across territories without erasing each registry's own regulatory identity. San Marino, Aruba and Gibraltar each operate under separate frameworks, so a shared executive board gives ARG a mechanism to coordinate safety, compliance and service expectations across them while leaving local rules intact.

This kind of structure matters most to aircraft owners and operators choosing where to register, since registry choice depends on the interplay of jurisdictional rules, service quality and international recognition rather than on a single group's size. How ARG's executive board actually exercises oversight across Aruba, San Marino and Gibraltar, particularly as Gibraltar is newly added to the portfolio, will show whether the group-level layer changes how any one registry is run day to day.