Brussels, 18/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Committee on Transport unanimously adopted the report by Nelly Maes (Greens/EFA, Belgium) on the proposal of directive aimed at subjecting third country aircraft that use Community airports to stricter safety rules. The report is to be adopted at first reading by the Parliament during its plenary session to be held early in September in Strasbourg.
Since 1996, the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) has applied the procedure for assessing the safety of non-community aircraft (SAFA), which allows for aircraft suspected of being a risk for air safety to be systematically inspected. The proposal of directive aims to formalise this procedure within the EU in order to harmonise inspection methods and prevent all competition distortion. It allows high-risk planes to be grounded for controls, as well as their personnel, and in some cases this may lead to a flight ban. The Parliament committee wished to strengthen this proposal by adopting an amendment by Ulrich Stockmann (PES, Germany) stipulating that ground inspections may be carried out on aircraft that do not give rise to suspicion, and an amendment by Nirji Deva (EPP, UK) stipulating that security controls must be carried out on each aircraft after 350 hours of flight. Furthermore, the committee calls for: (1) the recently created European Air Safety Agency to be involved, mainly for monitoring the correct application of the directive; (2) the authorities responsible to cooperate with the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) managing the data resulting from inspections; (3) information collected to be diffused to consumer and traveller organisations; and (4) the complaints of citizens living near airports to be taken into account as these may be useful for improving the safety of air traffic.