By - 29th August 2005
EU aviation safety blacklists will be published at airports and passengers notified about the identity of air operators, under proposals backed by the European Commission on Monday.
EU transport officials have expressed support for air safety public information measures proposed by French MEP Christine de Veyrac.
Her call for blacklists of airlines with a poor safety record to be made available at airports or travel agents, and for travellers to be given information on air carriers by tour operators, went further than original proposals.
But following Monday’s meeting of the European Parliament’s Transport Committee the commission is to make an EU-wide blacklist more widely accessible than on official websites.
The MEP has welcomed French and Belgian moves to publish lists of airlines banned from landing at their airports over safety concerns “as a good first step”.
“It is a good idea but not enough without a European-wide list,” she told EUpolitix.
The naming and shaming of 14 blacklisted airlines comes as national capitals and the European Parliament are currently working on EU-wide blacklists, with a decision expected by the end of 2005.
On Monday France named five airlines banned from its territory, and Belgium published the names of nine on the internet.
International airline safety is flying high on the EU agenda after three crashes in less than two weeks killed 350 people.
Brussels has proposed measures “ensuring that information on the situation in all member states is available to the public and allowing the extension of a ban to the whole EU”.
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