EU to send aviation experts to RI

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The European Union (EU) will soon send a team of aviation experts to Indonesia to make a comprehensive assessment of the country`s flight safety, the union`s envoy said.

The EU earlier held a meeting with the Indonesian Transportation Ministry to discuss its ban on 51 Indonesian airlines to fly to Europe. At the meeting, the Indonesian government had called on the EU to review its ban, EU Ambassador Jean Breteche said here Friday.

At the Indonesian government`s request, the EU would soon send a few of its aviation experts to Indonesia, he said.

"Since the request was made only recently, I cannot say when exactly the experts will come. But surely, they will come in the near future, not later than in three months," he said.

Breteche said the EU was likely to review the ban in three months` time after the ministry had made the request.

The European aviation experts` findings in the field and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)`s recommendation would serve as the basis for the EU to decide whether or not it would lift the ban, he said.

This did not mean that the EU would not consider changes or developments in the country`s flight safety, he said.

"We are fully aware of the national airlines` efforts to improve themselves, for instance, Garuda," he said.

It must be realized that the ban was one of the ways to press the Indonesian government to pay serious attention to flight safety, he said.

The decision to ban all 51 Indonesian airlines from flying to Europe was not made all of a sudden because the EU, through its Directorate General for Energy and Transportation, had on April 16 written a letter to the Transportation Ministry for consultations with Indonesian authorities, he said.

However, the Indonesian government had yet to respond to it, he added.

The EU sent another letter on the same subject to the Indonesian authorities on May 21, and to each of the Indonesian airlines on May 30, he said.

It was not until June 22 that the European Commission called a meeting in Brussels with representatives of the Directorate General of Air Communication by issuing a recommendation to ban Indonesian airlines from flying to the region, he said.

The ban will become official when the commission endorses the recommendation on July 6 by adding the Indonesian airlines to the EU`s list of unsafe airlines.