EU bans all airlines based in Congo, Djibouti, Sao Tome and Principe in Africa from flying in Europe over safety concerns

The European Union (EU) has prohibited all airlines based in the African countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Sao Tome, and Principe from flying in the member-nations of the EU owing to concerns over safety.

At the same time, the European Commission (EC), the executive wing of the European Union, relaxed restrictions further on TAAG Angola Airlines, the national flag-carrier airline of Angola, in the changes it made to its list of “unsafe airlines.”

However, Yemenia Yemen Airways, the national airline of Yemen, escaped being included in the European Union’s ‘blacklist’ despite demands that the airline be banned from flying to European countries after one of its planes crashed on June 30, 2009, in which 152 people died.

Yemenia Yemen Airway Flight 626 was on its way from Paris to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros Islands, when it plunged into the ocean. The only survivor was a teenage girl, who was rescued from the waters 13 hours of the incident. Many of the victims belonged to the Comoran community in France.

The European Union has allowed TAAG Airlines to increase the number of planes it uses to fly to Portugal.

The EC had barred TAAG Airlines in 2007 from flying to the EU’s member-nations. In July 2009, TAAG Airlines to operate up to 10 services only to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, using just 3 Boeing 777 planes.

With the easing of the curbs, TAAG Airlines can now use the Boeing 737 aircraft, too, on the Lisbon route.

In addition, the European Commission lifted a ban on 3 airlines based in Ukraine – Volare, Motor Sich, and Ukraine Cargo Airways.

The European Commission keeps a ‘blacklist’ of carriers that are not allowed to fly to the 27-nation European Union because of safety. This list is updated regularly.

The revision done on November 27, 2009, was the 12^th update, the European Commission said in a statement, adding that the ‘blacklist’ also acts as a “preventive instrument in safeguarding aviation safety” and also as “a last resort when serious safety problems persist, by imposing curbs or banning access to European airspace.”

The European Commission had drawn up the ‘blacklist’ first in March 2006, with the list including over 90 carriers, most of them from Africa.

The ban currently covers airlines from countries including Equatorial Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Gabon, Liberia, North Korea, and Indonesia.

It was the several air crashes that occurred in 2004 and 2005, in which hundreds of European passengers died, which prompted the member-nations of the European Union to seek what has been described as a “uniform approach to airline safety” through a “common blacklist.”

This blacklist – updated at least 4 times in a year – is based on defects found during checks at airports in Europe, the use of very old planes by companies as well as on failings by airline regulators in the non-EU countries.

The European Union’s blacklist of airlines, besides imposing a ban on operating in Europe, serves as a guide for airline passengers worldwide and also influences non-EU nations in formulating their policies on airline safety.