The European Union (EU) on Monday took Thailand's Puket Air off its blacklist but banned airlines from Pakistan and Sudan from landing at European airports because of a failure to meet EU safety standards.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) will be allowed to fly into the 27-member EU only with its Boeing 777 aircraft, the European Commission said.
A blanket ban was imposed on Sudan's Air West whose operations into the EU were already restricted to one single aircraft.
The commission also backed Bulgaria's decision temporarily to prohibit five Bulgarian carriers from operating into the other EU member states as well as into Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
The banned airlines include Air Sofia, Bright Aviation Services, Heli Air Services, Skorpion Air and Vega Airlines.
Russia also won the commission's support in banning national carriers Aero Rent, Tatarstan, Atlant Soyuz, Aviakon Zitotrans, Centre Avia, Gazpromavia, Lukoil, Russian Sky (Russkoe Nebo) and Utair from flying into the EU.
However, the commission said that "under exceptional circumstances and on the basis of tight checks, some flights might be allowed."
For the first time, two carriers - Thailand's Phuket Air and DAS Air Cargo/Dairo Air Services from Uganda/Kenya - were taken off the EU blacklist as they brought their safety measures in line with EU standards.
The EU list of unsafe carriers was drawn up in March 2006 following a string of deadly plane crashes in the previous two years had killed hundreds of European travellers.
Most of the 102 airlines banned are African. The few companies not from Africa are based in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea and Thailand.
EU companies, however, are not on the list.
To be updated at least every three months, the blacklist is based on deficiencies found during checks at European airports, the use of antiquated aircraft by companies and shortcomings by non-EU airline regulators.
-- DPA 2007-03-05
