EU Bans Four Airlines

European Union, has banned four airlines from flying to its member-nations for non-compliance with international safety standards.

The airlines include, Aero majestic and Inter-Island Airlines from Phillipines, Stellar Airways from Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Congo from Republic of Congo and Rollins Air from Honduras.

Speaking on this development, EU Transport Commissioner, Slim Kallas said, “Safety comes first. We cannot afford any compromise in this area.

“Where we have evidence inside or outside the European Union that air carriers are not performing safe operations we must act to exclude any risks to safety,” he  said.

Meanwhile, the Aviation Training Academy (ATA) of South Africa’s Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATN) has been presented with the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Top Regional Training Partner award as the best IATA partner training centre in the world last year.

“IATA has partnerships with 20 regional training centres around the world,” said IATA Regional Director for Safety Operations and Infrastructure, Gaoussou Konate.

“There is one other in Africa in Nigeria. This is very important, we do civil aviation training. This gives us opportunities to staff civil aviation in Africa and get IATA-Standard training in Africa.

“The training partnership between ATA and IATA began ten years ago, over that period, some 9,000 South African and international student participated in the joint training programmes. Although ATNS is an air traffic management organisation, the academy does not just train air traffic controllers, it has trainees on all sectors of aviation training, except aircrew,” Konate said.