A list of airlines banned from flying in the EU due to safety concerns could be available to passengers within six months, the European Commission said on Friday, urging a rapid adoption after a spate of crashes. France and Belgium have pre-empted the tougher rules. They will publish a blacklist of carriers banned from landing in their airports on Monday.
International airline safety has become a sensitive political issue following four fatal crashes in August in which more than 330 people have died.
"We hope the list will be adopted very soon, late this year or early next year," European Commission spokesman Rupert Krietemeyer told a daily briefing.
EU member states will draw up individual lists and the Commission will combine them. The goal is to stop an airline, which has been banned in one state due to a poor safety record from doing business in another. The Commission proposed a pan-EU blacklist in February but EU governments and the European Parliament must approve it before the list can apply across the 25-nation bloc.
French nationals made up most of the 160 people killed on August 16 when a jet from Colombia's West Caribbean airline crashed in Venezuela after apparently suffering engine failure.
The jet had twice passed French air safety tests but a Colombian audit of West Caribbean had found a lack of crew training, incorrect use of flight logs and maintenance problems. If France had known of the problems, it would have carried out stricter checks, Transport Minister Dominique Perbenon said on Thursday.
All 121 people on board a Helios Airways Boeing 737 flying from Cyprus to the Czech Republic died when it crashed into mountains near Athens in Greece on August 14.
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