UAE plans to blacklist unsafe airlines

Hugh Naylor

• Last Updated: November 07. 2009 12:06PM UAE / November 7. 2009 8:06AM GMT

Dubai // Aviation authorities in the UAE are preparing to draw up a blacklist banning airlines with poor safety records or other issues of concern from using airports in the country.

The disclosure came after an investigation by The National confirmed that at least half a dozen airlines blacklisted by the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union, were operating in Sharjah and Dubai as well as airports in the northern Emirates.

Alongside the planned blacklist, Saif al Suwaidi, the head of the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), said the organisation had been “cleaning up” what he described as rogue operators using multiple airports in the country as “virtual” hubs.

He revealed the proposed scheme after being asked by The National why it was that air carriers banned from flying in European airspace routinely used airports in the UAE as transit points, maintenance hubs and even “virtual” operating bases.

Mr al Suwaidi said that when completed, the blacklist’s core objectives would be similar to those of the ban that operated in Europe. “Our approach will be different, based on different tools of measurement but, at the end of the day, our objective is the same: to ensure the highest standards of safety and to protect our country.”

Azza Air, the Sudanese air transport company operating the Boeing 707 cargo aircraft that crashed in Sharjah on October 21, killing all six crew, has been banned from flying in UAE airspace until an investigation is complete. However, it is not restricted from entering European skies.

Mr al Suwaidi said a completion date for the list of banned airlines had not yet been decided and such an undertaking would require a significant investment in resources.

The UAE, with five international airports, has emerged as a regional hub, but the revelations regarding EC-banned airlines operating in the country have raised questions over safety standards.

“If you say somebody is blacklisted, that means the company needs to increase its safety standards, to ask for a European audit, an international audit,” said Ronan Hubert, an expert at the Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office.

The EC-blacklisted carriers, ranging from passenger airlines to cargo operators, are primarily registered in countries in eastern Europe and central and southern Asia.

Most have been deemed unfit for flight in Europe because of, according to EC documents, “serious safety deficiencies” that can include “all types of aircraft” operated by the carrier. However, a poor safety record is just one of several reasons why a carrier could find itself blacklisted by the EC. Others include unsatisfactory disclosure of maintenance records by the carrier, and general oversight deficiencies within the civil aviation authority a carrier is registered with.

In the case of the latter, most airlines registered in the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan and some African nations, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia and Sierra Leone, are already among the EC’s 225 banned carriers. Another seven are allowed to operate in European airspace under “restrictions”.

In July the EC’s vice president, Antonio Tajani, called on other nations to consider imposing similar measures on carriers appearing on the European blacklist.

The EC, he said, “will not accept that airlines fly at different standards when they operate inside and outside Europe. It is high time that the international community rethinks its safety policy; those airlines which are unsafe should not be allowed to fly anywhere.”

It was a warning that the UAE federal Government said it took seriously.

Generally, operators banned by the EC are registered in countries from which they rarely, if ever, fly. Instead, they base their operations in the UAE, using it as a hub to transfer cargo to and from third-party countries.

The phenomenon, said Mr al Suwaidi, posed safety risks, mainly because the carriers exploited legal ambiguities that possibly resulted in less rigorous inspections of their aircraft and operations.

“Since they are based here, but because they are not registered here, the country where they are registered cannot perform oversight over their aircraft. And since they are registered somewhere else, we are not responsible for the extent of oversight that the country of registration should be responsible for.

“For that reason,” he said, “we have started cleaning up the market from those who are misusing the open-sky policy.” Multiple carriers had recently been sanctioned, Mr al Suwaidi said, although he declined to disclose their names, the penalties they had incurred, or in which countries they were registered.

But he confirmed they had been using more than one airport in the UAE. He emphasised “we are not targeting any country, only the operators”.

Some operators on the EC’s blacklist confirmed they had been put under growing pressure by the GCAA following last month’s fatal crash at Sharjah.

Capt Yuri Balmazov, the head of flight operations at Click Airways, a Kyrgyz Republic operator that has offices at Sharjah Airport Free Zone, said local authorities had begun to deny the company’s aircraft access to UAE airspace two weeks ago.

The cargo operator, which used at least two UAE airports for four years with four ageing aircraft made in Russia and Ukraine, was banned by the EC in October 2006. Its operations included regular deliveries of “foodstuff” and “humanitarian” cargo to Yemen and East African nations such as Djibouti. “Now we have a problem because Emirates do not allow us to land here in Sharjah or Dubai,” said Capt Balmazov. “Even Kuwait is not allowed for us, overflight or landing, at Kuwait airport. It’s restricted our missions.” He blamed the move on the fact that Click was on the EC blacklist, and said the shortcomings of the Kyrgz Republic’s aviation authorities were to blame for the company’s problems in the UAE.

Officials at Sharjah’s Department of Civil Aviation declined to comment.

However, Natasha Pavlovich, an assistant to the owner of the Kazakh-registered carrier East Wing, said she was not aware of a recent clampdown in the UAE.

Ms Pavlovich confirmed that the carrier’s fleet of 30 aircraft used airports in Sharjah, Fujairah and Dubai, and that its owner, Alexander Zykov, lived in Dubai.

“Our aircraft come to the Emirates for maintenance,” she said, adding that they fly to different airports in the country “depending on where they are ordered to pick up cargo”.

East Wing was banned by the EC in April this year because of, according to its documents, “evidence of serious safety deficiencies … identified by France and Romania during ramp inspections … ”

Natalia Grechana, the operations manager for the EC-blacklisted Ukraine Cargo Airways, spoke from the company’s base in Kiev to confirm that it operated frequent flights through Sharjah. The carrier was banned by the EC last year because it “does not meet the relevant safety standards”.

Asked about the issue, Charles Hajdu, a manager at Fujairah International Airport, said in an e-mail that the airport upheld strict safety standards and never experienced a “serious accident”.He did not say whether other operators banned in Europe were flying through, or based at, the airport.

“Fujairah International Airport follows the directives of the GCAA who are the regulatory oversight authority of the UAE and who administer the standards and recommended practices of the UAE aviation industry,” said Mr Hajdu.

Lorne Riley, the head of corporate communications at Dubai Airports, which runs Dubai International Airport, echoed those sentiments: “GCAA is the regulator, and we adhere to all regulations and guidelines set by them.”

But one manager at a carrier that uses airports in Fujairah and Sharjah, who wished to remain anonymous, said many banned airlines regularly used the country’s airport facilities. “All of them, well, just about all of them, fly out of the UAE.”

Mr Hubert said he also believed that was the case. Even operators from the DRC, which he called “the worst country in the world regarding aviation safety”, paid the country’s airports regular visits, he said.

Even so, Mr Hubert said it would be imprudent for the UAE to hastily begin banning operators en masse. “We can’t say that, starting today, all these operators should be simply banned from Sharjah. I think this would be a bad decision as far as [the UAE’s] markets in Africa and ex-Soviet countries was concerned, because the UAE is in the middle of these routes and these markets are really important.” That sort of strategy would seem to be beneficial to Ariana Afghan Airlines, banned by the EC in 2006, and which operates offices and a staff of six at Dubai International Airport.

Only “certain aircraft” operated by the passenger airline, which has a daily flight from Kabul to Dubai among other regular routes, were identified by the EC, Ariana said.

The company had been involved in 26 “occurrences”, including crashes, according to a database on the Aviation Safety Network. The site is run by the Flight Safety Foundation, an independent organisation specialising in aviation safety issues.

In March 1998, 45 people died when a Ariana Boeing 727-228, on a flight from Sharjah to Kabul via Kandahar, struck Sharki Baratayi mountain, near Kabul. In March 2000, one of its domestic flights was hijacked. In April 2005 when one of its cargo planes flying from Dubai to Afghanistan swerved off the runway at Kabul Airport when a tyre burst on landing, injuring five crew members.

The company’s Dubai station manger, Sayed Abdulhadi, said he hoped the ban would be lifted after an EC review of its practices on November 9. “We have made big changes, like ordering new, modern aircraft.” Other carriers declined to discuss the extent of their UAE operations.

hnaylor@thenational.ae