Europe to blacklist Pakistan airlines

Brussels: The European Union is set to ban most of Pakistan International Airlines' (PIA) fleet from flying to the 27-country bloc because of safety concerns, an EU source said on Friday.

The source said a committee of experts had decided to block all but seven planes of the airline's roughly 40-plane fleet from flying to Europe for failing to meet international safety standards.

"Only those seven will be allowed to make flights to European Union countries," the source said. "The rest of the fleet will be blacklisted." State-run PIA declined to comment.

"We cannot comment on this until we receive an official communication from the EU," a PIA spokesman said in Karachi.

The decision is likely to come into force in about 10 days, the EU source said, once it is made official by the executive European Commission.

The source said the decision could cause disruptions to passengers because the airline had flight connections to Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands.

A Pakistani diplomat in Brussels said the airline was working to address the EU's concerns, which focused on maintenance problems and old aircraft.

"It is for the airline to take steps to alleviate the situation and they are already doing that," the diplomat said.

"I think there is a great effort by PIA and also by the European officials that passengers should not suffer too much from this," he said.

Last year the Commission banned nearly 100 airlines from operating in the bloc, targeting mostly African carriers after a spate of fatal crashes involving European passengers.

In addition, Bulgaria, which joined the EU in January, has suspended five carriers from flying to the rest of the bloc as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland until the companies achieve necessary safety standards.

Those carriers are Air Sofia, Bright Aviation Services, Heli Air Services, Skorpion Air and Vega Airlines. The carriers are not being placed on the EU blacklist.

"The Aviation Safety Committee has expressed its satisfaction from Bulgaria's measures, due to which there are no Bulgarian airline companies included in the blacklist," the Bulgarian transport ministry said in a statement.