Jakarta - The European Union will soon partially lift a
blanket ban on Indonesian airlines, imposed in 2007 after a series of
deadly air accidents, the Indonesian Transport Ministry said
Saturday.
The EU's Air Safety Committee has recommended that the bloc drop
the ban on national carrier Garuda Indonesia and three other airlines
which are deemed to have met EU's safety standards, said Bambang
Ervan, a spokesman for the ministry.
The three other airlines are Mandala Airlines, Airfast Indonesia
and Premiair, he said.
'The process will take about two weeks. They will have to
translate the documents into 22 languages and sign it,' said Bambang.
The European Union has banned Indonesia's 51 airlines since July
2007 after a spate of air crashes that raised alarm about the
country's aviation safety.
On January 1, 2007, an Adam Air plane that plunged into the sea
off South Sulawesi province, killing all 102 people on board.
In March the same year, a Garuda jet overshot the runway and burst
into flames in Yogyakarta, killing 21 people.
A Garuda spokesman, Pujobroto, said the airline was preparing to
revive its Jakarta-Amsterdam route.
'The preparations will take about nine months, so we expect to fly
again to Europe in the first semester of 2010,' he was quoted as
saying by the Detik.com news website.
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, has seen the emergence
of airlines, including low-cost ones, since the aviation sector was
liberalized in the late 1990s.
The rapid growth has raised questions over whether safety has been
compromised.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story