PIQUED by the ban imposed by the European Union (EU) on 26 African airlines over alleged safety violation, the umbrella body for the continents carriers, African Airlines Association (AFRAA) has called on African governments, the African Union (AU) and African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) to intervene in the development.The AFRAA Assembly Resolution called on the AU and AFCAC to engage the EU with a view to finding a mutually acceptable approach to jointly addressing safety issues.The body stated that the action of the EU would progressively destroy the continents air transport industry, just as it called upon all African stakeholders including governments, the AU, AFCAC, AFRAA to address the serious safety oversight deficiencies and concerns in the states blacklisted.AFRAA reiterated that irrespective of what the European Commission public relations exercise of attempting to pass blanket banning as a solution to safety concerns, it regarded the development as nothing other than a blunt instrument that constrained the development of a viable air transport industry in Africa.While the net losers are African carriers, the net beneficiaries are always the EU community carriers that are said to swiftly step in to fill the vacuum and take the market share of the banned airlines.The institutions were charged to seriously and meaningfully engage with the EU to establish a mutually acceptable, fair and transparent mechanism to address safety concerns in place of the unilateral blanket banning, which it claimed has so far not yielded any meaningful achievement in advancing safety on the continent.The banning of an airline not only prohibits the airline from operating to the EU countries but also impacts its ticket sales to other destinations including on code shared routes as travel agents and other code share partners in EU are required by regulation at the time of sales or booking to notify passengers that the airline is blacklisted.The Secretary General of AFRAA, Dr. Elijah Chingosho, in a statement he sent to The Guardian from its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, said that it was with great disappointment that AFRAA received the disturbing news that the European Commission had included the Republic of Mozambique and all its airlines in the infamous EU list of banned airlinesthe blacklist.He lamented that Mozambique was the 14th African state to be included in the list, noting that this development brought to 26 per cent, the number of African states now on the banned list.The number reached 15 when Madagascar, whose national airline, Air Madagascar, was given a partial ban.According to him, LAM Mozambique Airlines safety record is impeccable. Since the company was established in 1980; it has not had a single major accident. And since 1989 there have been no accidents of any kind involving LAM Mozambique Airlines aircraft.Major European airlines can make no such claims. For example, according to the Flight Safety Foundation, Air France has had 23 major accidents (involving substantial damage to aircraft, serious or fatal injuries) since 1990, three of them with fatalities, and a total of 348 deaths.The AFRAA scribe disclosed that despite the blacklisting of Mozambique, EU carriers would continue to operate with increased frequencies and higher yields to Mozambique and the other states that are the subject of the ban, adding that if the airspace of an African country is unsafe, it is unsafe also to European carriers who continue to fly the African skies for commercial benefit.AFRAAs primary purpose is to foster commercial and technical cooperation among African airlines and to represent their common interests. AFRAA membership cuts across the entire continent and includes all the major intercontinental African airlines.The association members represent 83 per cent of total intercontinental traffic carried by all African airlines.
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