Boost for air passenger safety

2.04.04pm GMT Wed 22nd Mar 2006

An EU airline blacklist is being published by the EU Commission. The EU has agreed a list of airlines that fail to meet safety requirements and will therefore be banned from flying in European air space.

The list will be updated on a rolling basis every three months. It will provide passengers with details about airlines that have been blacklisted for various reasons.

It is now often the case that passengers book with one airline but in fact travel with another which may, in some cases, have a poor safety record.

Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East Midlands, commented:

"This is good news. Passengers must be given details of which airline they will be flying. This is a boost for air passenger safety. It become an issue following the Sinai air crash in January 2004.The plane involved was a charter flight operated by an Egyptian air company with a poor safety record."

"There will now be a European standard for imposing a ban - rather than twenty-five different national standards across the EU. In urgent cases, a ban can be imposed at short notice which will speed up the procedure."

The complete blacklist will be published on the EU Commission website www.europa.eu.int/comm/transport/air/index_en.htm and on the European Aviation Safety Agency website www.easa.eu.int/home/index.html tomorrow.