The Angolan airline TAAG was withdrawn from the European Union’s “blacklist” of aviation and could fly again without restrictions in European airspace, which has not happened since 2007, the European Commission announced today.
By updating its “blacklist” of airlines that are prevented from flying over Community territory for security reasons, the Commission states that “there is positive news for Angola, since its national airline TAAG Angola Airlines, as well as Heli Malongo, which operated with restrictions since November 2008, have been removed from the list. ”
The decision was taken on the basis of the unanimous opinion of the Member States’ security experts who met from 2 to 4 April at the seat of the Air Safety Committee chaired by the European Commission with the support of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), says the community executive.
TAAG was included in the EU’s “blacklist” in July 2007 and, in late 2008, was again allowed to fly to Europe but under operational restrictions, being able to only fly to Portugal in the first phase and only three aircraft of its fleet “validated” by Brussels, with the restrictions changed slightly over the successive updates of the list since then.
Until today’s update, TAAG continued to have restrictions for part of its fleet, only being able to fly in European airspace with the Boeing B737-700, Boeing B777-200, and Boeing B777-300 aircraft.
The EU ‘s “blacklist” now prohibits a total of 120 airline companies from flying to the European Union, 114 of which are certified carriers in 16 countries due to a lack of security oversight by the national aviation authorities, and the remaining six due to concerns about the airlines themselves, including Venezuelan Avior Airlines.
Among the companies certified by 16 countries are the Angolan carriers with the exception of TAAG and Heli Malongo, as well as those of São Tomé and Príncipe, with the inclusion of all but three companies in Moldova (Air Moldova, Fly One and Aerotranscargo).
