Painted Black: a study of the EU unsafe airlines ban

Click here to see a full list of airlines banned within the EU from the European Commission Directorate General for Energy and Transport website.

Just over 90 airlines have been named, shamed and banned (as of August 2006) – until their safety improves – from EU skies, while pressure grows for an international blacklist 

As soon as the night time noise restrictions lifted, an ageing McDonnell Douglas DC-8-62 freighter taxied out of a Brussels airport hangar into the dawn calm of a cold March morning to start an ignominious return home.

© Flight International

Belgian civil aviation authority officials must have cheerfully saluted the departure of Silverback Cargo Freighters from the heartland of Europe back to its Rwandan home. A day later and the African aircraft, which had been grounded since August, would have been permanently “residing” at the Zaventem airport, banned from flying under blacklist rules and creating even greater problems in its stationary wake.

“The supervising authority and the airline worked together to ensure that the aircraft was brought up to standard as a pre-condition for flight... Any further delay would have caused series issues about its ability to travel through European airspace,” confirms a Belgian CAA official.

Belgium’s transport ministry published the country’s first blacklist of air transport companies last August, following examples set by Switzerland and the UK, as the public outcry at the non-existent airline safety disclosure by European aviation authorities grew to a deafening pitch.

Describing the circumstances surrounding Silverback’s inclusion on the Belgian blacklist after aviation safety inspectors detected a fuel leak problem, a CAA official said: “In economic terms, being put on a blacklist is tantamount to having an air disaster. With one accident every week [involving other carriers] during August, that triggered an extreme sensitivity – and with the current political emphasis, it is a case of guilty until proven innocent.”

Silverback evidently failed to restore Belgian faith in its safety and last week was banned, along with 91 other airlines, most of them based in Africa, from landing at European airports for failing to meet international safety standards.

European transport commissioner Jacques Barrot says the EU, based on information from the bloc’s 25 member states, is barring 50 carriers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 14 from Sierra Leone and seven from Swaziland, three states judged to have an “inadequate system for regulatory oversight” and therefore deserving of a blanket ban on all airlines operating from there (full list follows this article).

Pressure to create a binding EU blacklist began to mount after the Flash Airlines Boeing 737-300 crash at Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt in January 2004, which killed 134 French holidaymakers. They had boarded unaware that the Egyptian aircraft had failed a Swiss safety test two years earlier and equally oblivious that it remained banned from Swiss airspace on technical grounds. Calls for action increased when it was suspected in May 2005 that Turkish carrier Onur Air, banned from Dutch airspace, was flying Dutch tourists to and from Belgian airports simply by bussing them over the border.

Passengers enquiring about which airlines were banned by the 25 member states met with a particularly galling example of bureaucratic stonewalling. While not classified as officially secret, the information shared between the 41 member states of the European Civil Aviation Conference, which oversees the Safety Assessment of Foreign Aircraft (SAFA) testing regime, was unobtainable by European citizens. Passengers and even tour operators could only find out the details if governments decided to reveal the information. The accepted wisdom was that the protocol was for the countries that imposed the actions not to discuss them.

Under cover

Switzerland, with its stern cultural fixation with business confidentiality, had banned 23 aircraft from flying through its airspace, although the names, and even the number of companies, remained classified.

While concern had been expressed that too much disclosure would discourage airlines from co-operating in future safety programmes, the high number of deaths in recent years arguably caused through an absence of transparency created a momentum that defeated any academic debate over effective collaboration between regulator and regulated.

The independent publication of blacklists by several European states last year accelerated the speed of change. It led to EC regulators drawing up in May an emergency procedure for dealing with safety concerns about particular airlines – the foundation for the first EU airline blacklist.

Now that it is published, EU states can continue to act at national level in exceptional cases, particularly in emergencies or in response to a safety issue that directly affects it. More importantly, the EC can impose a ban independently on the advice of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), whose role will from next January be extended to include administering the SAFA database under which aircraft inspections can result in bans.

EASA performance here will be heavily scrutinised as the EC pledges that the EU blacklist will be updated “as often as is necessary” and at least at three-monthly intervals, while guaranteeing that every decision to ban an airline will be subject to careful assessment even if done “very quickly in urgent cases”.

This will to promote the transparency of the safety-testing regime also became apparent at the International Civil Aviation Organisation annual conference, held days before the publication of the EU airline blacklist. There it was announced that aviation safety oversight audit results for individual states would be made available to the public within two years.

What began as a “Mexican stand-off”, with six African states plus Panama and Cuba insisting that assessment by ICAO’s Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) should be kept secret from the public for fear of bad PR, turned into a “Mexican wave” of approval. By the conference’s end on 22 March, 70 states out of the 124 represented present signalled they would sign up for disclosure.

The support was, however, followed by an appeal for resources to assist affected states to correct any shortcomings in safety oversight discovered during the audit. The World Bank and the EC countered that support would only be available to states who signed up to the disclosure agreement.

Heated debate

QUESTION TIME How the European aviation blacklist will work Is the blacklist simply a compilation of existing national lists? The first list is based on all the bans already in force in the 25 EU member states, in addition to Norway and Switzerland. The European Commission’s Aviation Safety Committee (ASC) has now verified whether a ban at European level can be justified based on common safety criteria. What do the common safety criteria cover? Criteria are based on the results of checks at European airports; the use of poorly maintained, antiquated or obsolete aircraft; the inability of the airlines involved to rectify the identified shortcomings during inspections; and the inability of the authority responsible for overseeing the airline to perform this task. The EC only imposes a complete or partial ban on an airline after a case-by-case analysis following ASC consultation. How can an airline be added, cleared or taken off the list? The EC has adopted rules to update the list. If a banned airline believes it has since achieved safety standard compliance, it can contact the EC or a member state, either directly or through its civil aviation authority. The EC will then take a decision based on an ASC assessment. How often is the list updated? As often as necessary and at least every three months. Every ban must be the result of analysis and must comply with rights of defence and can be done quickly in urgent cases. Can member states still take safety measures nationally? While these measures are taken jointly on the basis of common criteria, there is scope for member states to act at national level in exceptional emergency cases or in response to safety concerns specifically affecting that state. Can the EC impose a ban independently? If the EC is informed, in particular by the European Aviation Safety Agency, of a serious safety issue, it can act without waiting for a member state response, following an ASC assessment. What are airlines’ “rights of defence”? Airlines can express their case, can submit comments in writing, add new items to their file, and ask to be heard by the EC or to attend a hearing before the ASC. They may be assisted by their own supervising CAA. Will wet-leasing of aircraft allow banned airlines to continue operating? Banned airlines can still sell tickets under their name and using their own code. But the flights must be operated by aircraft and staff belonging to airlines that are deemed to be safe. Under existing regulations, it is compulsory to inform passengers which airline will operate the flight.

Early detractors of the first EU airline blacklist questioned whether European legislators were in the business of managing a “cut and paste” aggregation of existing banned operators. But the finer detail contained within the EU blacklist suggests there was a level of heated debate when the Aviation Safety Committee examined each airline on a case-by-case basis.

Differences of opinion did emerge over Hewa Bora, a Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) airline. While the UK CAA had banned any Congolese carrier from flying to the UK due to fears that its regulatory oversight was inadequate, Hewa Bora continued to enter EC airspace on its sole European route to Brussels and then on to Paris. A Belgian CAA official insists that, while it had found Hewa Bora “marginally acceptable” in safety terms, the UK CAA, on the basis of Belgium’s own data, moved to ban the operator from Europe – potentially cutting the DRC’s last aviation link to the former colonial power. “The assumption that the EU blacklist was merely a ‘cut and paste’ job is not true,” says the official. “The Hewa Bora bilateral operation was deemed by Belgium to be too valuable in terms of it representing an economic asset that we wanted to preserve. There was pressure to avoid a country that had no first-hand experience of a particular carrier being able to dictate affairs.” Hewa Bora is now permitted to use one specific Lockheed L-1011 for its European operations.

A lack of transparency has not merely been indicative of a misguided deference to protocol by Europe’s civil aviation authorities – each ploughing until now an essentially autonomous furrow – but is also indicative of a real fear by disadvantaged countries of publication destroying either their airlines or their tourist industry.

Commissioner Barrot anticipated the risk of retaliation with the publication of the first blacklist, pledging that the EU would also aid African countries trying to upgrade airline safety standards, echoing pledges made at the ICAO conference. “Our sole aim is to improve aviation safety, which is in everyone’s interests, and in no way to affect a country’s economic or social development. We also propose that countries affected set up technical assistance measures to help them achieve a satisfactory level of aviation safety,” said Barrot.

Tit-for-tat

But the evidence of tit-for-tat reprisals exists. Heavily exposed to the African air travel market, SN Brussels has still to resume its Brussels-Kigali service after the Rwandan authorities grounded one of the Belgian carrier’s Airbus A330-300s in Kigali for three days in February and requested documents detailing the aircraft’s complete maintenance history.

Rwanda released the Belgian aircraft following direct intervention by Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who accused the African nation of impounding the aircraft in reaction to Belgium’s decision to bar Rwandan carrier Silverback.

A source close to the airline says: “You would struggle to find an airline more exposed than SN Brussels... Anything that is said is subject to over-reaction and the fact that SN is being mistakenly identified as as a state-owned airline.”

SN Brussels has signalled its commitment to further investment in the African market by planning to take a majority shareholding in a new national carrier for Cameroon that is being privatised with the help of the World Bank. Cameroon has had its own recent aviation safety issues. France imposed a two-month ban in September after security concerns were raised on the Cameroon Airlines’ Douala to Paris Charles de Gaulle operations.

Virgin Nigeria – a joint venture between Virgin Atlantic and Nigerian investors – launched services three months ago with a mix of domestic, regional and long-haul routes from its Lagos base. In February, Virgin Nigeria and the Nigerian College of Air Training agreed to co-operate on training pilots and mechanics, with Virgin committing to employ successful graduates.

Virgin Nigeria director of flight operations Jason Holt believes the improvement of the country’s aviation infrastructure is not simply a question of cash, more a question of developing the “absorptive capacity” of the state in terms of the regulatory and technological environment. “There is an acceptance that change is on its way, but it is a slow process,” he admits.

Another aspirant in the establishment of a new Cameroon national carrier, David Granville, chief executive of Kenyan Airways, sums up the attitude of many of the high-quality African airlines: “We’re African airlines and as such our name can be more easily tarnished because of someone one who has significantly lower standards than ours.”

AIMEE TURNER / LONDON

EU Airlines Blacklist - table updated 4 August 2006

Air carrier	ICAO	Country
Air Koryo	KOR	Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Air Service Comores	-	Comoros
Ariana Afghan Airlines*	AFG	Afghanistan
BGBAir	POI	Kazakhstan
Blue Wing Airlines	BWI	Surinam
GST Aero Air Company	BMK	Kazakhstan
Phoenix Aviation	PHG	Kyrgyzstan
Phuket Airlines	VAP	Thailand
Reem Air	REK	Kyrgyzstan
lverback Cargo Freighters	VRB	Rwanda
Sky Gate International Aviation	SGD	Kyrgyzstan
Star Jet	SJB	Kyrgyzstan
Africa One	CFR	Democratic Republic of Congo
African Buness And Transportations	ABB	Democratic Republic of Congo
African Company Airlines	FPY	Democratic Republic of Congo
Aigle Aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Boyoma	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Charter Services (Acs)	CHR	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Kasai	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Navette	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Plan International	APV	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Transport Service	ATS	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Tropiques Sprl	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Ato	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Blue Airlines	BUL	Democratic Republic of Congo
Buness Aviation Sprl	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Butembo Airlines	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
CAA - Compagnie Africaine D'aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Cargo Bull Aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Central Air Express	CAX	Democratic Republic of Congo
Cetraca Aviation Service	CER	Democratic Republic of Congo
Chc Stelavia	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Comair	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Compagnie Africaine D'aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Congo Air	CAK	Democratic Republic of Congo
C0-Za Airways	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Dahla Airlines	DHA	Democratic Republic of Congo
Das Airlines	RKC	Democratic Republic of Congo
Doren Aircargo	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Enterprise World Airways	EWS	Democratic Republic of Congo
Espace Aviation Services	EPC	Democratic Republic of Congo
Filair	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Free Airlines	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Funtshi Aviation Service	FUN	Democratic Republic of Congo
Galaxy	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Gr Aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Global Airways	BSP	Democratic Republic of Congo
Goma Express	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Great Lake Buness Company	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Itab - Buness	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Jetair	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Kinshasa Airways Sprl	KNS	Democratic Republic of Congo
Kivu Air	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Lac - Lignes Aériennes Congolaises	LCG	Democratic Republic of Congo
Malu Aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Malila Airlift	MLC	Democratic Republic of Congo
Mango Mat	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Okapi Airways	OKP	Democratic Republic of Congo
Rwabika	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Safari Logistics	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Scibe Airlift	SBZ	Democratic Republic of Congo
Services Air	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Shabair	SHB	Democratic Republic of Congo
Tembo Air Services	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Thom's Airways	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Tmk Air Commuter	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Tracep	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Trans Air Cargo Services	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Transports Aeriennes Congolais (TRACO)	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Trans Service Airlift	TSR	Democratic Republic of Congo
Uhuru Airlines	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Virunga Air Charter	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Waltair Aviation	-	Democratic Republic of Congo
Wimbi Diri Airways	WDA	Democratic Republic of Congo
Zaire Aero Service	ZAI	Democratic Republic of Congo
Air Bas	RBS	Equatorial Guinea
Air Consul Sa	RCS	Equatorial Guinea
Air Maken	AKE	Equatorial Guinea
Air Services Guinea Ecuatorial	SVG	Equatorial Guinea
Aviage	VGG	Equatorial Guinea
Avirex Guinee Equatoriale	AXG	Equatorial Guinea
Cargo Plus Aviation	CGP	Equatorial Guinea
Cess	CSS	Equatorial Guinea
Cet Aviation	CVN	Equatorial Guinea
COAGE - Compagnie Aeree De Guinee Equatorial	COG	Equatorial Guinea
Compania Aerea Lineas Ecuatoguineanas De Aviacion Sa (LEASA)	LAS	Equatorial Guinea
Ducor World Airlines	DWA	Equatorial Guinea
Ecuato Guineana De Aviacion	ECV	Equatorial Guinea
Ecuatorial Express Airlines	EEB	Equatorial Guinea
Ecuatorial Cargo	EQC	Equatorial Guinea
Equatair	EQR	Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Airlines Sa	EQT	Equatorial Guinea
Euroguineana De Aviacion	EUG	Equatorial Guinea
Federal Air Ge Airlines	FGE	Equatorial Guinea
GEASA - Airlines SA	GEA	Equatorial Guinea
GETRA - Guinea Ecuatorial de Transportes Aereos	GET	Equatorial Guinea
GUINEA CARGO	GNC	Equatorial Guinea
Jetline	JLE	Equatorial Guinea
Kng Transavia Cargo	VCG	Equatorial Guinea
Litoral Airlines Compania (Colair)	CLO	Equatorial Guinea
Lotus International Air	LUS	Equatorial Guinea
Nagesa Compania Aerea	NGS	Equatorial Guinea
Predencia De La Republica De Guinea Ecuatorial	ONM	Equatorial Guinea
Prompt Air Ge Sa	POM	Equatorial Guinea
Skimaster Guinea Ecuatorial	KIM	Equatorial Guinea
Skymasters	SYM	Equatorial Guinea
Southern Gateway	SGE	Equatorial Guinea
Space Cargo	SGO	Equatorial Guinea
Trans Africa Airways Gesa	TFR	Equatorial Guinea
Unifly	UFL	Equatorial Guinea
Utage - Union De Transport Aereo De Guinea Ecuatorial	UTG	Equatorial Guinea
Victoria Air	VIT	Equatorial Guinea v
Air Cargo Plus	ACH	Liberia
Air Cess (Liberia)	ACS	Liberia
Air Liberia	ALI	Liberia
Atlantic Aviation Services	AAN	Liberia
Bridge Airlines	BGE	Liberia
Excel Air Services	EXI	Liberia
International Air Services	IAX	Liberia
Jet Cargo-Liberia	JCL	Liberia
Liberia Airways	LBA	Liberia
Liberian World Airlines	LWA	Liberia
Lonestar Airways	LOA	Liberia
Midair	MLR	Liberia
Occidental Airlines	OCC	Liberia
Occidental Airlines (Liberia)	OCT	Liberia
Santa Cruise Imperial Airlines	SNZ	Liberia
Satgur Air Transport Corp	TGR	Liberia
Simon Air	SIQ	Liberia
Sosoliso Airlines	SSA	Liberia
Trans-African Airways	TSF	Liberia
Transway Air Services	TAW	Liberia
United Africa Airline (Liberia)	UFR	Liberia
Weasua Air Transport Co	WTC	Liberia
Aerolift Co	LFT	Sierra Leone
Afrik Air Links	AFK	Sierra Leone
Air Leone	RLL	Sierra Leone
Air Rum	RUM	Sierra Leone
Air Salone	RNE	Sierra Leone
Air Sultan	SSL	Sierra Leone
Air Universal	UVS	Sierra Leone
Bellview Airlines	BVU	Sierra Leone
Central Airways	CNY	Sierra Leone
Destiny Air Services	DTY	Sierra Leone
First Line Air	FIR	Sierra Leone
Heavylift Cargo	-	Sierra Leone
Inter Tropic Airlines	NTT	Sierra Leone
Mountain Air Company	MTC	Sierra Leone
Orange Air Services	ORD	Sierra Leone
Orange Air erra Leone	ORJ	Sierra Leone
Pan African Air Services	PFN	Sierra Leone
Paramount Airlines	PRR	Sierra Leone
Seven Four Eight Air Services	SVT	Sierra Leone
Sierra National Airlines	SLA	Sierra Leone
Sky Aviation	SSY	Sierra Leone
Star Air	SIM	Sierra Leone
Teebah Airways	-	Sierra Leone
Transport Africa	TLF	Sierra Leone
Trans Atlantic Airlines	TLL	Sierra Leone
West Coast Airways	WCA	Sierra Leone
Aero Africa	RFC	Swaziland
African International Airways	-	Swaziland
Airlink Swaziland	SZL	Swaziland
Air Swazi Cargo	CWS	Swaziland
East Western Airways	-	Swaziland
Galaxy Avion	-	Swaziland
Interflight	JMV	Swaziland
Jet Africa Swaziland	OSW
Northeast Airlines	NEY	Swaziland
Ocean Air	JFZ	Swaziland
Royal Swazi National Airways	RSN	Swaziland
Scan Air Charter	-	Swaziland
Skygate International	SGJ	Swaziland
Swazi Air Charter	HWK	Swaziland
Swazi Express Airways	SWX	Swaziland
Volga Atlantic Airlines	VAA	Swaziland

* Applies to all aircraft operated by the air carrier except one A310 - F-GYYY

Source: Flight International