Luxembourg, 12/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 12 October, the European Commission adopted the second update to its black list of airline companies that are banned within the European Union. Since 20 June, when the first update of the list appeared, two individual companies have been added: DAS Air Cargo of Kenya and Dairo Air Services from Uganda. They are now subject to a total ban because of the serious security failings detected over recent months within these twin companies, a Commission press release points out. What is more, the 27 companies certified in Kyrgyzstan are also subject to a total ban because of the national control authority's inability to ensure effective supervision. On the other hand, the Commission did not wish to include the Cypriot company, Ajet (former Helios Airways), on the list, contrary to the recommendation made by the European Air Safety Agency. The same was also true for Pulkovo Aviation (Russia), Pakistan International Airways (Pakistan) and Johnsons Air (Ghana). In all these cases, the Commission considered that an immediate prohibition measure was not needed on the basis of the air security criteria applied. “We issued a yellow card”, Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot told the press. The Commission plans to set up vigilant monitoring to ensure that the correcting measures announced are implemented by operators and their control authorities, and may take another look over coming weeks at how appropriate it is to have security measures on a European scale.
The afghan air company Ariana Afghan Airlines, having sold the single aircraft registered in France with which it was authorised to operate in Europe, is now subject to a total ban, just as eight air companies recently set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). However, Air Services Comores of the Republic of Comores, which until now had been completely banned, is now subject to an operational restriction and could fly in and out of the Community using an aircraft recently equipped with appropriate safety gear. Finally, while noting the progress made by Phuket Air, certified in Thailand, and by Air Koryo, certified in the People's Republic of Korea, the Commission considered it “premature” to remove these two carriers from the list. 68 companies subject to a total ban (19 from RDC, 21 from Liberia, 18 from Sierra Leone and 10 from Swaziland) have been removed from the list because they have been forced to cease operations. The new list will be published in the Official Journal of 14 October and will come into effect on 15 October. (dt)