(JAKARTA) - Indonesian flag carrier Garuda has passed an international safety audit which should help it shake off a ban from European Union airspace, the company president said Thursday.

Emirsyah Satar said the airline been declared fit to fly in an Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

"Garuda Indonesia has now formally become an IOSA operator," he said.

Garuda is the only one of Indonesia's 51 commercial and charter airlines which is a member of the IATA.

The European Union banned all Indonesian-registered aircraft from flying over its airspace last year, acting on a report from the International Civil Aviation Organization which criticised the country's safety standards.

The bloc is expected to review the ban in July, and Satar said the audit outcome should be a sign to Brussels that "we can be taken off the EU ban list."

Indonesian officials were upbeat that certain unnamed airlines would be taken from the ban list, following talks with EU officials on the matter earlier this month.

The June 2007 EU ban followed on the heels of several deadly air crashes, including an Adam Air jet that plunged into the sea off Sulawesi island on January 1, 2007, killing all 102 on board, and a Garuda jet which crashed in Central Java in March of the same year with 21 dead.

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