Gabon removed from airline companies' blacklist

Libreville, Gabon (PANA)   -  Gabon, which has been blacklisted since 2008 in the European Union (EU) airspace, was Friday removed from the black list, an official source said here Friday.

Arthur Nkoumou Delauney, director general of the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) said that following convincing results, the European Commission had just removed Gabon from "the blacklist of countries whose airlines are not allowed to fly to EU member- states".

It has taken the Gabonese authorities nearly 11 years to comply with the aviation safety rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

A compliance rate evaluated at 6.7 percent in 2007; from 17.98 percent in 2012 and 26.07 percent in 2016, the last ICAO validation mission carried out in Gabon from January 29, 2019 to February 6, 2019, reported an implementation rate of 72,91 percent, a record increase of 46 percent.

It is recalled that the national airlines, Air Gabon and Gabon Airlines, successively disappeared mainly for management reasons. Since then, no company created in Gabon has been deployed in Europe.

Some 115 airlines spread across 15 countries are banned in Europe.

-0-     PANA      LAW/BEH/KND/RA     3Jan2020