Britain lists 11 airlines banned from its skies

09 Jan, 2004

Britain named 11 non-EU airlines Thursday subjected to bans since January 2000 due to safety and security concerns, but the list doesn't include the Egyptian airline involved in a Red Sea crash last weekend that killed 148 people.
Tabling the list in parliament, secretary of state for transport Tony McNulty also revealed that all airlines from Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia and Tajikistan are forbidden from flying into Britain.
All of the 11 banned airlines were from Africa, central Europe and Central Asia - and the majority had their suspensions lifted after they addressed and satisfied British concerns.
Not on the list was Egypt's Flash Airlines, which operated the Boeing 737 that crashed Saturday into the Red Sea off Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 148 people on board, most of them French tourists.
It subsequently emerged that Flash had been banned from Switzerland due to safety concerns.
"There has been some media speculation over the safety of Flash Airlines who were involved in the recent crash off the coast of Egypt," a spokesman for the Department of Transport said.

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