EU bans Philippine carriers

THE European Union prohibited all airlines based in the Philippines and Sudan from flying in the bloc under the latest changes to a list of unsafe carriers.

The EU said “serious safety deficiencies” in the Philippines’ regulation of carriers and a “poor safety performance” by aviation authorities in Sudan justified the operating bans. The European Commission, the 27-nation EU’s executive arm, cited assessments by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

“We cannot accept that airlines fly into the EU if they do not fully comply with international safety standards,” EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said in a statement Tuesday in Brussels.

The EU also restricted the operations of Iran Air, eased curbs on TAAG Angola Airlines by letting it fly to all EU destinations under “strict conditions” rather than only to Lisbon, and allowed North Korea’s Air Koryo—on the list since 2006—to operate in the bloc with two approved aircraft.

This is the 13th update of a blacklist first drawn up by the commission in March 2006 with more than 90 airlines mainly from Africa. The ban already covers carriers from nations including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Indonesia, Liberia and Rwanda.

Airline crashes in 2004 and 2005 that killed hundreds of European travelers prompted EU governments to seek a uniform approach to airline safety through a common blacklist. The list, updated at least four times a year, is based on deficiencies found during checks at European airports, the use of antiquated aircraft by companies, and shortcomings by non-EU airline regulators.

The Brussels decision came despite a trip to the EU headquarters earlier this month by newly-designated Director General Alfonso Cusi of the new Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, which replaced the old Air Transportation Office.

The Philippines was downgraded from category 1 to category 2 by the US Federal Aviation Authority in November 2007 after the old ATO failed the safety review conducted by Washington regulators.

One of the first acts of Cusi to comply with the higher safety standards was to hire 47 technical personnel for the new Flight Standards Inspectorate Service, a corrective measure that apparently came too late.

“Even with the Philippines being placed on the blacklist, it does not mean that Philippine aircraft are unsafe,” Cusi said, adding that both Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific were flying dozens of brand-new, EU-made Airbus jets in their fleets.

In addition to imposing an operational ban in Europe, the EU blacklist can act as a guide for travelers worldwide and influence safety policies in non-EU countries. Nations that are home to carriers with poor safety records can ground them to avoid being put on the EU list, while countries keen to keep out unsafe foreign airlines can use the European list as a guide for their own bans. Bloomberg