France Compiles Blacklist for Airlines

Reacting to the “black month” of August France published a list of airlines that aren´t allowed to fly its airspace, thus beating European regulators to the punch.

North Korea´s Air Koryo, Air St. Thomas from the United States, International Air Service from Liberia, Mozambique´s Lineas AER and the Thai Phuket Airlines are all on a blacklist of airlines that breach international regulations and therefore can no longer fly in France.

The list was published by the French civil aviation authority, DGAC, on its Internet site Monday. Most of the interdictions had already been made in 2004; the Air Koryo interdiction goes as far back as April 2001.

The blacklist is France´s reaction to the "black month" of August, which to date has seen five bad airline accidents and more than 330 resultant deaths.

A week ago, a West Caribbean Airways plane crashed in Venezuela en route to the French Caribbean island of Martinique, causing 160 deaths of which 152 were French citizens.

Meanwhile the United Nations Civil Aviation Agency has called on its 188 Contracting States to eliminate remaining deficiencies in the global air transport system, some of which may have contributed to five major accidents in August that claimed at least 330 lives in four countries, making it one of the worst months in aviation history.