The European Parliament voted Wednesday to create an EU-wide blacklist of airlines that do not meet international standards, one of a series of measures aimed at improving air safety.
Responding to a string of fatal plane crashes that claimed hundreds of lives this year, European Union lawmakers want carriers deemed unsafe to be banned from operating anywhere in the EU. At the moment, an airline banned in one EU member state can still operate in another.
EU countries are expected to approve the blacklist on Dec. 5., and the bans are due to come into force early next year.
"Passengers will enjoy the same protection, no matter which European airport they use. Europe is on its way to intensifying air security," said conservative deputy Christine de Veyrac.
The list will be published on the Internet and brought to the attention of customers by ticket vendors, both at their premises and via their Web sites. Tour operators will have an obligation to inform passengers the identity of the carrier.
Under the new rules, passengers will also have a right to compensation if the airline on which they were to fly was included on the blacklist or replaced by a blacklisted airline after they bought the ticket.
The assembly's vote came a day after the European Commission proposed giving the EU's air safety agency more powers to impose rules on all airlines - European and non-European - serving the continent.
The European Aviation Safety Agency will be put in charge of regulating airplane checks, preflight preparations, emergency action plans and pilot licensing for all 25 EU countries.
The agency, based in Cologne, Germany, will also oversee airplane safety checks on non-European airlines that fly in Europe.
The commission had suggested that existing lists of unsafe airlines produced by the 25 EU countries should simply be consolidated into one EU blacklist. But EU lawmakers, in a 577-16 vote, asked the commission to draw up criteria according to which member states would decide which airlines to ban from the EU.
Lawmakers said a simple collation of lists could spark diplomatic disputes with countries whose airlines will be banned, and voted instead in favor of a centralized list. They suggested air carriers concerned should be given the opportunity to appeal.
