EU blacklists unsafe airlines

12.23.22pm GMT Mon 21st Nov 2005

London's airline passengers are to get more travel information with the introduction of an EU 'blacklist' of airlines that do not meet safety requirements.

Following a number of fatal crashes this summer, MEPs voted yesterday (16.11.05) to create a list of airlines that are considered too unsafe to fly within the whole of the EU. If agreed by EU transport ministers in December, the new rules will enter into force at the start of next year.

Britain, France and Belgium have already published national lists airlines grounded due to poor safety records, but the problem is that an airline banned in one EU country can still land in another without restrictions.

Welcoming the proposals, London's Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford said:

"With the increasing availability of cheap flights, passengers want to be sure that basic safety standards are being met throughout Europe, and it makes sense to spread best practice across the whole EU."

"I'm also pleased the European Parliament has voted to strengthen passengers' rights even further, by obliging airlines to inform passengers about the identity of their air carrier before they travel."

Under the plan passengers will have the right to compensation or re-routing if the airline that they were to fly with is included on the blacklist, or replaced by a blacklisted airline, after they have purchased the ticket.

Notes

Common criteria for blacklisting will be introduced and an EU-wide list will be compiled and published by the European Commission.

The pressure for this blacklist started when a 737 owned by the Egyptian airline Flash crashed in January 2004 killing all the passengers on board, who were all French citizens. It emerged after this accident that the airline had been banned from Swiss airports on technical grounds two years earlier. In May this year, it was discovered that Onur Air, a Turkish carrier, banned from Dutch airspace, was flying Dutch tourists to and from Belgian airports and bussing them over the border. In August this year pressure grew after a Helios Airways flight from Cyprus to Prague with 121 people on board crashed north of Athens, apparently after a drop in cabin pressure.