Air Transport

Indonesia is working with European authorities to have four Indonesian carriers taken off an European Union blacklist.

Last year the EU banned all of Indonesia's 52 carriers from serving Europe but the director general of Indonesia's Directorate General of Air Communications Budhi Suyitno says the European Commission "has given us two options - the fast track and the normal track".

The normal track involves trying to have the ban completely lifted and the fast track involves focusing efforts on getting the ban lifted for four of the 52 carriers.

Suyitno says Indonesia has opted for the fast track and proposed that the ban be lifted on Airfast Indonesia, Garuda Indonesia, Mandala Airlines and Premiair.

He declines to say when Indonesia hopes the ban will be lifted on these four but says the two sides are due to meet in May.

Garuda is the national carrier, while Mandala is a privately owned scheduled carrier controlled by Indonesian conglomerate Cardig International and overseas investment firm Indigo Partners. Airfast is a charter airline that does much of its work for western mining companies and Premiair is another charter airline that does a lot of corporate jet charters for European and US customers.

The EC issued the ban last June after Indonesia failed an International Civil Aviation Organization safety audit. Suyitno says ICAO has decided against auditing Indonesia this year until the country takes concrete steps to implement some of its 600 recommendations.