Barrot demands power to ban airlines

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 09/06/05

In the wake of the recent debacle involving Turkish airline Onur Air, the European Commission is once again leaning on member states to agree on an EU-wide approach to grounding flights over safety fears.

On 12 May, the plans of thousands of Dutch holidaymakers were thrown into chaos when the Netherlands imposed a landing ban on Onur Air, citing "serious safety deficiencies".

As a result, passengers were stranded in Turkey and travel agencies had to rush to try to arrange alternative travel. There was further confusion when flights were re-routed to Belgium, where no ban had been implemented.

Over the next two days, Germany, Switzerland and France followed the Dutch example, leading to threats of retaliation on airlines as well as legal action from Turkey. The bans were lifted after Onur agreed to an 'action plan' under which member states would carry out extra checks on its aircraft.

Last week (26 May) the Commission announced that it would establish safety criteria under which the executive could ban an airline across the entire EU.

Transport commissioner Jacques Barrot said that the status quo could not continue.

"Europe cannot tolerate a badly co-ordinated approach between member states where a company is restricted in one country but authorised in the neighbouring one," he said.

The European Commission is to ask EU governments to give it the power to impose EU-wide flight suspensions, by strengthening safety rules for foreign air carriers that were brought in last April as a response to the Flash Airlines disaster of January 2004 which killed 148 people.

At the time, national governments refused to grant that power, resulting in a watered down proposal that allows them to quash any suggested ban. They were loath to let Brussels interfere in an issue which was not solely about safety. Air carriers can be banned from national territory for economic reasons, such as not paying landing fees, or for political reasons. On the other side of the coin, it would be politically more difficult for some countries to ban airlines from a third country than others. Belgium, for example, might find it difficult to ban airlines from its former colony, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But the Commission is hoping that the Onur Air mess will have persuaded member states to see that a pan- European approach might be helpful.

"We think that the climate might be mature for renewing our initial proposal which gives the Commission power to decide to ban a carrier through its committee of experts," said one senior official. The Commission may try to push through its plans via a new law currently making its way through the EU's legislative process.

The proposal, adopted by the Commission in February, aims to provide air passengers with more information about air carriers that have been banned from one or more member states for safety reasons alone. It foresees the publication of national 'blacklists' of such air carriers in an EU-wide list.

National governments have provisionally expressed support for such a list, although they have demanded to be given a month to review the list to ensure that they agree with the names on it before it is published.

The Commission may therefore lean on the Parliament to introduce amendments allowing the Commission to set down the blacklist criteria and issue EU-wide bans. MEPs on the transport committee will debate the issue in July.

Sylviane Lust, director-general of the International Air Carrier Association (IACA), which represents holiday airline companies, said she regretted that the issue had cast members in a poor light by implying that the safety record of holiday flights was inferior to that of scheduled airlines.

"Just because a company decides to issue tickets in a different way does not mean that they are treated any differently by the safety authorities," she said.

"That said, if there really is a serious safety problem the aircraft should be banned completely from all EU countries."

But, she warned, "a blacklist should not put the public in charge of deciding whether or not an air carrier is safe".

Jim Murray, director of European consumer association BEUC, said that in principle he supported the initiative.

"We would support an eventual strengthening of the powers of the Commission to ban flights over the whole of the EU," he said.

In anticipation of eventually gaining the power to issue an EU-wide ban, the Commission is in the process of handing over its responsibility for aircraft safety the new European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), based in Cologne.

Currently in charge of certifying aircraft, by 2007 the EASA is expected to be in charge of operations, flight crew licensing and the oversight of third country aircraft.

The European Commission on 26 May 2005 announced that it would establish safety criteria under which it could ban an airline across the entire EU. This came in the wake of the debacle involving Turkish airline Onur Air, which had been banned in the Netherlands and in three other European countries in mid-May 2005 for breaching safety regulations.