Brussels, 21/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Airlines from Albania, Angola and Russia have escaped the black list, but Jordan Aviation (Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan) and Rollins Air (Honduras) have been failed once again in the 18th review of the bans on operating in the EU, which was published on 21 November. The Commission calls on the member states to remain vigilant and to continue its monitoring efforts: “Safety comes first. We cannot afford any compromise in this area. Where we have evidence inside or outside the European Union that air carriers are not performing safe operations, we must act to exclude any risks to safety”, said the European Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas.
Albania, Angola, and Russia: top of the class. The Russian Federation and Albania have decided to take domestic measures against air carriers flying to the EU (Albanian Airlines and Belle Air for Albania, VIM AVIA, Yakutia and Tatarstan Airlines for Russia). The Commission and the Air Safety Committee, which met on 8 and 10 November, have now judged that it is not necessary to impose unilateral sanctions on certain carriers from this country, deciding instead to rely on the monitoring and safety commitments made by the national authorities.
As for the Angola-registered airline, TAAG Angolan Airlines, it sees its restriction on flights to the EU lifted as it recently renewed its fleet. Two modern B-777-300-type aircraft of TAAG Angolan Airlines will now have access to the European skies.
Newcomers in the Commission's sights. The Commission and the Committee also decided to restrict the operations of Jordan Aviation, and formally to ban the activity within the EU of three Boeing 767-type aircraft belonging to this airline. All operations of Rollins Air, an airline based in Honduras, have all been banned in Europe, further to problems flagged up by France. Lastly, the European authorities have decided to add to the black list airlines from the Republic of Congo (Equatorial Congo), the Democratic Republic of Congo (Stellar Airways) and the Philippines (Aeromajestic and Interisland Airlines), as they failed to provide documents proving their reliability in terms of national safety standards.
20 countries cut off from the EU. In all, this list bans 273 air lines from 20 countries from operating within the European Union. The countries in question are Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Mauritania, Mozambique, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan, Swaziland and Zambia. (MD/transl.fl)