01/09/2005 09:28 GENEVA (AFP)
Switzerland bans Flash, Air Van Airlines: official
Swiss airline regulators have banned two companies, Flash Airlines of Egypt and Air Van Airlines of Armenia, from flying in Switzerland, an official list showed on Thursday.
The blacklist was issued by the Swiss regulatory body, the Federal Office for Civil Aviation (FOCA), following the publication of separate registers of airlines considered unreliable by France and Belgium.
The two companies are barred from Switzerland because of "systematic safety problems," the FOCA said in a statement. The list was drawn up after 200 spot checks carried out last year, a spokeswoman said.
Air Van Airlines also figures on the Belgian list, which was published on Monday, but is not on the French register.
A Flash Airlines plane crashed off the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in January 2004, killing 148 people including 134 French holidaymakers.
That raised a storm in Switzerland after it was revealed that Flash Airlines had already been banned here since 2002 but that the official decision had never been made public.
Following the outcry, the FOCA released details of seven aircraft banned from Switzerland, out of the 23 on the blacklist.
Apart from the Flash Airlines plane, the others were a Fokker from the Spanish company GIR Jet, a Tupolev 154 from Hemus Air of Bulgaria, a Boeing 720 from the US-Lebanese carrier JR Executive, a Yakovlev 40 from Dniproavia of Ukraine and another from Premium Air Shuttle of Nigeria, as well as a DC-8 from the Azerbaidjani-Belgian company Silk Way.
In 2004, Swiss authorities decided that any potential passenger or travel agency could ask the FOCA if a company or individual aircraft that he or she planned to use was on the blacklist.
But authorities refused to publish the full list, citing data protection rules.
The "political" decision to publish the blacklist came last week, when Swiss transport minister Moritz Leuenberger met his French counterpart Dominique Perben, in Paris last week, FOCA spokeswoman Mireille Fleury said.
In its statement, the FOCA noted that the spot checks carried out in Switzerland "are not equivalent to a complete inspection".
Under international rules, the country in which an airline is registered is responsible for carrying out detailed checks.
"The fact that a company doesn't appear on the list does not imply that it meets international safety standards," the FOCA said.
©2005 AFP
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