The European Commission adopted the second quarterly update of the Community list of airlines banned in the European Union, which was drawn up in March 2006 and already amended last June. The new list replaces the previous one and is now available on the Commission’s website. The Commission has therefore fulfilled its obligation to update the black list on a regular basis.
“On top of the changes to the black list we are going to keep a closer watch on a number of carriers operating frequent passenger flights in
The Commission has heard all those air carriers and national civil aviation authorities which were likely to be involved and had requested a hearing. The hearings took place in the Committee of aviation safety experts from the Member States which assists the Commission in this area.
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Ajet
Besides the immediate changes to the list the Commission and the Member States’ aviation safety experts examined six other individual cases. They looked at the safety situation as regards Pulkovo Aviation certified in Russia, Pakistan International Airways, Ghana’s Johnsons Air, and Ajet (the former Helios Airways) certified in Cyprus. The Commission did not consider in any of these cases that an immediate banning measure was called for on the basis of the air safety criteria. The Commission will, however, be keeping a watchful eye on these operators’ implementation of the corrective action they and their control authorities have promised and may well be re-examining the need for EU-level safety measures in the course of the coming weeks.
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New list
The changes made to the previous Community list adopted on 20 June of this year (Commission Regulation (EC) No 910/2006) are:
Two individual airline companies have been added to the list on a proposal from the Commission: Kenya’s DAS Air Cargo and Uganda’s Dairo Air Services are now banned (Annex A) due to the serious safety deficiencies identified in these twin airlines in the last few months.
All of the 27 companies certified in the Kyrgyz Republic have been banned (Annex A) due to the national control authority’s inability to supervise them effectively.
The lists of companies certified in four of the five States already banned previously have been updated on the basis of the latest information supplied by these States. A total of 68 carriers have had to cease operating because these countries have revoked their certificates, and have therefore been taken off the list: 19 from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 21 from the Republic of Liberia, 18 from the Republic of Sierra Leone et 10 from the Kingdom of Swaziland. 8 companies recently created in the DRC have been added to the list.
Since
Air Services Comores of the Union of the Comoros, previously banned outright, is now subject to operational restrictions and will be allowed to operate services bound for the Community with an aircraft recently fitted with appropriate safety equipment.
Finally, though noting the progress made by Phuket Air certified in Thailand since its banning last March, the Commission considered that, as in the case of Air Koryo of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it would be premature to remove this carrier from the list.
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