Air France cancels Cameroon flights over row

Air France said on Saturday it had suspended its flights to Cameroon's Douala airport as a row flared over France's decision to ban national carrier Cameroon Airlines from French skies for safety reasons.
The French Civil Aviation Authority added Cameroon Airlines on Friday to a blacklist of air carriers banned from landing in France. Cameroon authorities have expressed surprise and dismay at the decision, which deals a major blow to the already struggling airline.
Air France said the flight cancellation was due to the fact that handling services at airport in Douala, Cameroon's main commercial city and transport hub, could not be assured. "Because the handling services at Douala airport cannot be guaranteed, Air France has been forced to cancel its flights until Monday," a spokeswoman said in Paris. She declined to comment on why these services could not be guaranteed.
The French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) said in a statement on Friday that checks this spring on Cameroon Airlines' aircraft had found "numerous lapses from international norms", notably with the loading of planes, the transport of dangerous goods, navigation documents and tire maintenance.
French and Cameroonian authorities had worked together to fix the problems but new checks in July and August showed that "persistent anomalies remained", the statement said.
"It is unfortunate that we should get to this point because we've been following up this problem with the French civil aviation authorities for quite some time," Ignatius Sama Juma, the director general of Cameroon's civil aviation authority, told reporters in the capital Yaounde late on Friday.
"We would have expected that they would understand because we opted to go and audit Cameroon Airlines, the technical as well as the operational aspects, there (in France) and we have not found anything particular," he said. He denied that the airline had any technical problems and said the checks at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris had only found "minor discrepancies" - fire extinguishers that were not properly fixed and luggage standing in the way of emergency exits.
He said another audit had been ordered with the aim of fixing any problems within two weeks. Cameroon Airlines, which is struggling with debts and dwindling customers, was put earlier this year under provisional administration by the government as part of plans to partially liquidate it and pave the way for its privatisation.
Before the ban, Cameroon Airlines flew four times a week to former colonial power France, representing 75 percent of its commercial flights. It is already banned from flying in Britain.
Communications Minister Pierre Moukoko Mbonjo played down the latest ban, adding discussions between French and Cameroonian authorities were continuing and that their outcome would "reassure all sides, starting with the customers of Cameroon Airlines".
The airline joins five others blacklisted by France in August. Paris said then it hoped to speed up proposals for a EU-wide blacklist of airlines seen as unsafe. Belgium has also banned nine airlines, including several from Africa.
African countries themselves have moved to tighten up safety rules after a series of plane crashes in recent months. Earlier this month the Democratic Republic of Congo's transport ministry grounded 33 out of 51 airlines operating in the country.