Donald G. Gray

Donald Gray is an of counsel and foreign legal consultant (not authorized to practice Florida law) in Holland & Knight's Miami office, where he focuses on aviation and aerospace. Mr. Gray advises many of the world's leading aircraft lessors, financiers and manufacturers – as well as several domestic and international airlines and aircraft operators – on aircraft finance transactions, and aerospace commercial and regulatory law matters.

Mr. Gray has advised on the financing or refinancing of more than 900 aircraft during the past 15 years. In addition, he has played a leading role on behalf of financiers in every significant Canadian airline bankruptcy proceeding in the last 25 years, most notably, Wardair, Odyssey International Airlines, Air Toronto, Soundair Express, Vacationair, Worldways, Nationair, Can-Air Cargo, VistaJet, Canadian Airlines International Ltd., Inter-Canadien, Canada 3000, Royal Airlines, AllCanada Express, Knighthawk, Air Canada, Jazz, Jetsgo, Zoom Airlines, Skyservice and Aveos. He also has advised financiers in several worldwide airline insolvency proceedings, including Eastern Airlines, Kingfisher, SkyGreece, WOW Airlines, Bristow Group, Norwegian and CHC.

In addition, Mr. Gray has represented GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) and most other aircraft lessors in the successful Air Canada restructuring, which received an Airfinance Journal "Deal of the Year" Award in 2004. He represented the underwriters and structured in Air Canada's historic Enhanced Equipment Trust Certificate (EETC) financing of its 2013 B777 deliveries, which was the first "true" EETC completed by a non-U.S. airline, and which received both Airline Economics and Airfinance Journal "Deal of the Year" awards.

Mr. Gray also has advised a number of non-Canadians in regard to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions with Canadian aviation undertakings, and several Canadian entities in international aviation M&A transactions.

Mr. Gray was a Canadian delegate to the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law/International Civil Aviation Organization (Unidroit/ICAO) sessions, which enacted the Cape Town Convention on international interests in aircraft assets in 2001. In 1999, he was a member of the draft group in Rome, and in 2001, he was chair of the Insolvency Subgroup in Montreal that prepared the final Cape Town insolvency provisions, including Alternative A. He has also served on the Legal Advisory Panel of the Aviation Working Group (AWG), a group of the world's leading aircraft manufacturers and financiers, since the formation of the panel in 2000. Mr. Gray served as chair of the AWG Legal Advisory Panel from 2006 to 2008, and currently serves on the executive committee of the AWG panel. He was appointed by the AWG as chair of the AWG Canada Contract Group, comprised of leading airline and aviation financing counsel in Canada, to review and report on Cape Town Convention and other major aircraft financing issues.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Gray served as vice president and general counsel of Odyssey International Airlines, an international charter airline; Air Toronto, an Air Canada regional connector; and Soundair Express, an international cargo carrier. He also acted as vice president of maintenance and engineering for the airline group. He is currently an active aircraft owner and IFR-rated pilot, and holds Canadian, United States and South African pilot certificates. Mr. Gray is currently working on transitioning his fixed-wing licenses to include rotary-wing operations.

Mr. Gray holds security clearance from the Canadian government as required for certain military aerospace matters.

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Gray established and chaired Canada's top-ranked and largest aviation law practice at an international law firm based in Toronto.

Outside his law practice, Mr. Gray has been an active volunteer with several wild animal conservation nonprofits for more than 20 years. He also served as a volunteer for Big Brothers of Metro Toronto for 12 years, mentoring two little brothers during that time. He also has served as a volunteer for four years with the Law in Action Within Schools (LAWS) program, mentoring Toronto inner-city high school students with an interest in a legal career.