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OVER 300 AIRLINES make up a growing “blacklist” of carriers that are banned from European airspace.
As airline safety again comes into the spotlight after the Germanwings disaster – caused by the co-pilot locking the cockpit before deliberately crashing the plane – the European Commission has been adding carriers to the “safety list” it first started publishing in 2005.
In December, all carriers from wartorn Libya, including its flag carrier, were added to a list which now includes 310 airlines from 21 countries. There are an extra 10 airlines which can only fly to the EU with specific aircraft.
At the time of the latest ban, EU transport commissioner Violeta Bulc said events in Libya had led to a situation in which the country’s officials couldn’t satisfy its obligations for airline safety.
The list is dominated by the airlines from 15 African countries, while the remainder come from Asia – including all but two airlines from the Philippines.
Many, like the Sierra Leone-registered Air Rum, are small airlines which have been shut down, or regional operators with very chequered safety histories.
But the list also includes several national flag carriers like Nepal Airlines, which was added to the list in late 2013 alongside other airlines certified in the mountainous nation after a string of fatal crashes.
Other national carriers include Air Kyrgyzstan, Sudan Airways and Ariana Afghan Airlines, while airlines like Iran Air and Kazakstan’s Air Astana are limited to flying only specific planes in European airspace.
National authorities ‘crap’
David Learmount, operations and safety editor at UK-based Flightglobal, told TheJournal.ie the reason why so many airlines were being added to the list was because the countries in which they were registered didn’t maintain proper safety standards.
Another way of putting it is that their civil aviation authority is absolute crap,” he said via email.
Only a handful of the airlines were ever likely to operate a flight to Europe – despite the region being one-third of the world air travel market - which meant the ban had next to no effect on those carriers.
The only incentive it provided for banned countries to tighten up their safety provisions was the potential impact of a few lost sales as European agents are obliged to warn about blacklisted airlines if booking connections with them.
Indonesian ban
However one exception was the EU’s move in 2007 when it barred all Indonesian airlines – including major carrier Garuda International – after a series of crashes in the country. The national airline’s European flight privileges were restored in 2009.
Learmount said Indonesia was a “borderline case” because it was a populous, developing country that would want to maintain links to Europe.
It has the capability to be good but keeps on failing … Australia, a close neighbour, has been beating them over the head for years, and supplying help too, but a sustained improvement has yet to materialise,” he said.
The current blacklist includes Philippines AirAsia, but not fellow AirAsia affiliate Indonesia AirAsia – which had its ban lifted in 2010.
The Indonesian airline’s flight 8501 crashed in the Java Sea off Bornea in late December, killing all 162 people on board.
Learmount said the EU blacklist probably only acted as an incentive for airlines and countries to lift their standards “in the very long run”.
But then its intention is not to provide an incentive, it’s to protect EU citizens,” he said.
The full list can be found here.
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Staff in NH and hospitals are no longer doing traditional nursing. They are meeting all of HiQA requirements alright , ticking boxes , filling forms. Meantime they don’t have time to care for the patient. Give me a nurse who will care any day of the week ..but they have been strangled by bureaucracy and paperwork. I’d rather see a rusty wheelchair with a happy patient in it than a shiny one with a patient left alone while a nurse fills out forms about them. HiQA has become like the Spanish Inquisition. W have lost something while endeavouring to be correct about everything.
Well said Helen. You hit the nail on the head.In HIQUAs eyes its paperwork and box ticking over real nursing care.
Absolutely right Helen. Hiqa focuses on it’s paper standards not the quality of actual care. Nursing staff have to spend their time filling out forms and covering ass from hiqa. Gone are the days of real care when buses could chat to patients check how they were feeling mentally and physically and care for the whole person. The hiqa standards are so extensive no unit will be fully compliant. I have yet to read a report where all standards had been reach there is always some nit picking. That way they create a job for themselves. In a time of public service employment and cut backs this quango has grown greatly. Money that could have been spent in service provision. It
All we hear about are the bad nursing homes
There are some wonderful nursing homes and my mother is in one of these
The Tara in bray
It is home form home and the staff are caring ,loving and go the full mile
All presided over by the wonderful owner anne Costello
Let’s hear a bit more positive reports
Otherwise people get scared
^^^There is a plug form an nursing home owner if I ever saw one……
But the message in the post is correct. There are allot of really good Nursing Homes out there. Unfortunately we only hear the horror stories.
Also instead of putting all the blame on the Director of Nursing/Matron(as HIQUA seem to do) the nursing home owners must be held accountable also.
@Phyllis
Care staff are not allowed to ‘care’ as they would
like to as they have targets,paperwork,no beds and middle
managers to deal with.Nobody goes into nursing wanting to
take patients around a hospital on commodes.
My grandad has been in a nursing home for almost 2 years due to Alzheimers it would be impossible to care for him at home. The work the nurses and carers do is truly commendable, due to budget cuts and pencil pushers demanding paperwork etc. it is impossible for the staff to care for each individual patient that the way they would want to and should be cared for!
I visit my grandad twice a week both times when he’s getting one of his meals, the staff are running back and forth trying to make sure each patient has a meal, there are 12 patients in my grandfathers ward that can’t feed themselves my grandad included there will be max 2 nurses on duty and 3-4 carers, they are doing their best in stretched situations.
Reports like this annoy me, they cost money and don’t help anyone, often make it appear that residential staff don’t care and fail to help anyone!
Those pen pushers and whoever makes the decisions to cut back would want to realise if they are lucky to reach old age that’s what’s ahead for them.
@Row-Sheen: So what are we to do? Are you suggesting we should ignore reports of elder abuse? Really? What if it were you being wheeled around with your underwear down? Just because you have had a good experience does not mean that others have had and it is critical to highlight incidences of this nature so as to acknowledge that they are unacceptable.
What has happened to ‘care staff’ that allows them to treat their patients in this awful manner :(
Places don’t have enough staff too manage?
Few years in a nursing home costs hundreds of thousands of Euro and the state pays for it. The more old people the greater the strain on the system.
What do you suggest then, euthanasia? No matter what the cost to the state for their accommodation, the cost of preserving their dignity is zero. These are the people who gave us the state to begin with.
@David Burke the HSE nursing homes are understaffed, too much emphasis on forms and bureaucratic nonsense which results in time taken from the nurses in providing care to the residents.
With regard to payment I am afraid that you are incorrect in assuming that the state picks up the tab. The HSE will recoup as much as they can from the patient. After assessment the HSE will take 80℅ of the weekly pension plus 7.5℅ per annum of any assets held. You are allowed to keep the first €36,000. The HSE will then provide a loan to cover the balance which is recouped upon your death.
Eg: savings €36,000 (not counted)
Value of assets €100,000
Pension €248 pw
248 x 80% = 198.40
100,000 x 7.5℅ = 7500/12 = 625
625 + 198.40 = a weekly contribution of €823.40
I know this as I was in the unenviable position of contemplating this type of care for my terminally ill mother. I have since decided to care for her at home under the palliative care system.
http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/olderpeople/nhss/nhss.html#fin
Yet another appalling indictment of the treatment of the most vulnerable. Will anybody be held to account for this? I very much doubt it.
I think the nurse in question will…
These problems and issues are a direct result of cuts and staff shortages. Before the recession, on a 31 patient ward, there were 4 staff nurses and 2 care assistants. Now there are 2 staff nurses and 1 care assistant. How are they expected to feed the dependant patients at meal times AND do the drug round at the same time when there is no staff. Nurses are doing their best and all they receive from from HIQA is criticism instead of a ‘we know you’re stretched to the limits but we know you’re doing the best you can’.
The drive to the bottom for costs is behind this. Owners have to absorb increasing costs to maintain their profit levels and think they can do so by cutting staff costs. A real acandal is the homecare system where staff t&c’s are being hacked to boost profits while taking in donations of food from multi national shops that are wholly unsuitable for their clients. Anything to save another euro by those on already bloated, unjustified salaries
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