PARIS - France and Belgium have issued blacklists of airlines prohibited from using their airports, an attempt to allay public fears about flying after a recent series of deadly crashes.
The French list released late Sunday has six companies, and Belgium's list released Monday contains nine airlines.
Swiss civil aviation officials also said they plan to release a similar list Thursday.
Starting Sept. 8, European Union states will meet in Brussels to work on rules to ban or suspend a company's flights, EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said.
Though all the airlines had been banned in recent years, France had never before made a blacklist public.
Thailand's Phuket Airways, one of the airlines banned in France, demanded to know what criteria France used to judge it.
"I really don't understand what is the meaning of unsafe. Unsafe for what? Unsafe for operations or unsafe for what? Because we have never had a serious incident or accident, so I would like to ask back to the authorities what is the meaning of unsafe?" Capt. Chawanit Chiamcharoenvut, executive vice president of Phuket Air, said in Bangkok.
Because air accidents are still so rare - despite this month's spike - airline records fail to tell the whole story, safety specialists say.
The U.S. has a slightly different system that focuses on countries rather than airlines, and uses aviation safety standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency headquartered in Montreal. Twenty-six of the 100 countries that have been assessed do not meet ICAO standards, most in Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
France's list of banned airlines is Air Koryo of North Korea; Air St. Thomas of the U.S. Virgin Islands; International Air Services of Liberia; Thailand's Phuket Airlines; and Linhas Aereas de Mocambique and Transairways, both from Mozambique.
On the Belgian list were Africa Lines of the Central African Republic; Air Memphis from Egypt; Air Van Airlines of Armenia; Central Air Express from Congo; Libya's ICTTPW; International Air Tours Limited from Nigeria; Johnsons Air Limited of Ghana; Silverback Cargo Freighters from Rwanda; and South Airlines of Ukraine.
