EU To Publish Blacklist Of Unsafe Airlines By Year-End 

The European Union Commission Wednesday said it intends to publish a "blacklist" of unsafe airlines before the end of the year.

The push to tighten safety rules has intensified since a plane flown by Flash Airlines, which had been banned in Switzerland, crashed into the Red Sea in January, killing 148 people, mainly French tourists.

"We need to provide citizens with better safety guarantees," said E.U. Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. She said the Commission will publish its blacklist on its official Web site.

E.U. governments and the European Parliament backed a bill this week tightening safety standards on foreign airlines, such as Egypt-registered Flash Airlines. However, the Commission believes European travelers should have access to information as soon as possible since the bill won't come into effect for at least two years.

At the moment, only Switzerland and the U.K. release information on airlines they consider unsafe.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 280 airlines, accounting for 95% of global scheduled flights, criticized the new E.U. law. According to the association, the only way of improving safety is for all airlines to be subject to comprehensive safety assessments by independent auditors. All its members will have gone through such a process by January 2006.

IATA is also scathing of blacklists. It says the current ones are confusing for consumers, as they don't clearly discriminate against minor and major problems and airlines, aircraft and countries.

"Liberia is on one of the lists and it doesn't even have an airline," said William Gaillard, a spokesman for IATA. "The gaps in the system need to be plugged but this isn't the best way of doing it."

Under the new law, E.U. countries will win the right to carry out spot checks and ground aircraft found to be violating safety rules. Flight crews' licenses will be checked, along with the aircraft's condition and the presence of mandatory onboard safety equipment, such as life jackets and fire extinguishers.

Until now, the country in which the airline is registered has been responsible for carrying out checks. Moreover, common E.U.-wide inspection procedures will prevent foreign aircraft from evading checks by picking among various airports within the E.U.

"One cannot help but ask whether those poor people who boarded Flash Airline's flight FSH 604 would have been quite as willing to do so had they been fully aware of the airline's safety record and the aircraft's history," said Nelly Maes, a Belgian member of the parliament's Green faction, who steered the bill through the European Parliament.

The legislation will cover an enlarged E.U. of 25 members as well as non-E.U. countries Switzerland and Norway, which have transport agreements with the bloc.

The bill targets carriers from Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia, which "often fail to meet international safety standards," according to the E.U.'s executive body, which wrote the proposal. Eastern European carriers, for example, are 50 times more likely to have an accident than Western European ones. Airlines based in Africa, Asia and South and Central America have accident rates at least twice as high as the world average, according to the Commission.

E.U. governments rebuffed efforts by the Commission to gain the sole power to impose blanket bans, arguing it would infringe their national sovereignty. Under the law, when an E.U. country bans an airline it must inform the Commission, which can then enforce an E.U-wide ban.

The Commission also will publish an annual report on airline safety. At the moment, this information is confidential and held by the Joint Aviation Authority. Over 18,000 inspections have been carried out over the last six years, according to the European Civil Aviation Conference.

FMI:  www.europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm