Either white or black

Rosaviatsia tightens flight safety measures

In September, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will conduct an audit of the state of flight safety in Russia, the head of the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (Rosaviatsiya) Evgeny Bachurin said yesterday. According to him, the inspection, which will take ten days, will cover all aspects of flight safety: legislation, regulations and job descriptions, organizational structure and practice of relevant government bodies. Mr. Bachurin expressed confidence that our country will cope with the inspection. “Currently, from the point of view of ensuring security, according to the ICAO classification, Russia belongs to the states of the first category. We cannot allow national prestige to be damaged ,” he said.

He also said that in April Rosaviation managed to remove the claims of the European Union authorities regarding the safety of flights of certain Russian airlines. Last year, as a result of surprise inspections (this form of control is provided for in the EU in relation, in particular, to foreign airlines), European authorities discovered violations in the practices of a number of Russian carriers flying to Europe. Then the Russian side chose to use its power to exclude these companies from servicing international European routes. The punishment was formalized by a joint order of Rosaviation and Rostransnadzor. In mid-February 2007, Russia banned the companies Aero Rent, Tatarstan, Atlant-Soyuz, Aviacon Cytotrans, Center Avia, Gazpromavia, Lukoil, Russian Sky and UTair from flying to Europe , at the end of June - also to the companies Kavminvodyavia, Kuban Airlines, Yakutia, and Airlines 400. In addition, in June, six other Russian companies were prohibited from using some of their aircraft on the European route. The problem was resolved at the end of April 2008, when Evgeny Bachurin and the Director for Air Transport of the European Commission's Directorate General for Energy and Transport, Daniel Calleja, signed an agreement to lift all bans - 13 “full” and six “partial”.

As Mr. Bachurin told Vremya Novostey yesterday, his department concluded from this story that in case such situations recur in the future, the form of punishment should be toughened for those who give European inspectors reasons for dissatisfaction. "We will no longer use 'partial' bans," he said. “Either white or black.” Mr. Bachurin explained that airlines whose aircraft were at fault will be completely suspended from flights to Europe by decision of the European or Russian aviation authorities. However, he added, as a result of analyzing last year’s flight safety stories, “now everyone (Russian airlines - Ed. ) knows what to do,” so in the first half of this year there was no opportunity to punish any of the carriers.

Mikhail KUKUSHKIN