France plans airline blacklist

2005-08-25 13:34

Paris - France will next week begin publishing a blacklist of airlines banned from its territory for safety reasons, transport minister Dominique Perben told a news conference on Thursday.

The announcement follows a crash last week of a Colombian jetliner in Venezuela with the loss of all 152 French passengers and eight Colombian crew on board.

The plane, a charter with a reduced-fare company, had been heading to the French Caribbean island of Martinique from Panama.

Perben said that, as of Monday, the website of France's Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) would publish "the list of companies banned from French territory, the list of authorised companies, the list of charter companies, in a way that is totally transparent".

Checks would be stepped up on aircraft making stopovers in French airports and on airlines applying for French landing rights, he said.

Introduced

Another measure will be introduced before the end of the year to allow passengers taking charter or tour group flights from France to know which carrier they will be flying on.

Britain has also embraced the idea of naming and shaming unsafe airlines, and EU transport commissioner Jacques Barrot said last week the scheme might be expanded EU-wide.

France's transport ministry had initially been looking at starting a "blue label" system early next year to endorse airlines with proven safety records.

Perben's announcement that France would instead blacklist airlines came a day after President Jacques Chirac travelled to Martinique to attend a sombre memorial service for the victims of the Venezuela plane crash.

French accident officials are analysing the "black box" recorders from the crashed Colombian plane, which resulted in the worst loss of French life in any aviation disaster.

- AFP