MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

France Compiles Blacklist for Airlines

Reacting to the “black month” of August France published a list of airlines that aren't allowed to fly its airspace, thus beating European regulators to the punch.

North Korea's Air Koryo, Air St. Thomas from the United States, International Air Service from Liberia, Mozambique's Lineas AER and the Thai Phuket Airlines are all on a "blacklist" of airlines that breach international regulations and therefore can no longer fly in France.

The list was published by the French civil aviation authority, DGAC, on its Internet site Monday. Most of the interdictions had already been made in 2004; the Air Koryo interdiction goes as far back as April 2001.

The blacklist is France's reaction to the "black month" of August, which to date has seen five bad airline accidents and more than 330 resultant deaths. A week ago, a West Caribean Airways plane crashed in Venezuela en route to the French Caribbean island of Martinique, causing 160 deaths of which 152 were French citizens.

So far France is the third European country, after Great Britain and Sweden, to publicize its own blacklist for airlines.

Britain not only forbids certain airlines from flying to the country, it disallows planes or airlines from entire countries on the grounds that they do not implement security measures strictly enough.

These countries include the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Tajikistan. Among the airlines banned from British air are Star Air Ltd and Air Universal (Sierra Leone), Air Memphis (Egypt), Cameroon Airlines (Cameroon), Central Air Express (Congo Kinshasa), Phuket Airlines y Air Mauritanian (Mauritania), plus others from Latonia, Estonia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Albania.

Following on neighbouring France, Belgium also published its "black list" of nine airlines, all of them cargo, which are banned from operating in Belgium airports since they do not comply with minimum safety standards.

The list published in the internet, www.mobilit.fgov.be, includes "South Airlines" from Ukraine; "Air Van Lines" from Armenia; "Air Memphis", Egypt; Libya's "ICTTPW"; "Central Air Express" from Congo; Nigeria's "International Air Tours Limited"; "Johnson's Air Limited" from Ghana; "Silverback Cargo Freighters" from Rwanda; "Africa Lines" from Central Africa.

The Swiss civil aviation authority said it will publish its own list on Thursday.

Meanwhile the United Nations civil aviation agency has called on its 188 Contracting States to eliminate remaining deficiencies in the global air transport system, some of which may have contributed to five major accidents in August that claimed at least 330 lives in four countries, making it one of the worst months in aviation history.

This autumn, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will consider the adoption of standards for setting up safety management systems, ICAO Council President Assad Kotaite said in an official release.