EU committee recommends lifting Indonesia flight ban

(JAKARTA) - The European Union's Air Safety Committee has recommended that the regional bloc partially drop a ban on Indonesian airlines flying to its airspace, Indonesia's transport ministry said Friday.

The recommendation, communicated to Indonesian officials in Brussels, could see the European Commission lift flight bans on four Indonesian airlines within two weeks, ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan told AFP.

The EU committee found the four airlines -- flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, Mandala Airlines, Airfast Indonesia and Prime Air -- had met safety standards set by the regional bloc, Ervan said.

A ban on other Indonesian airlines flying into the EU would remain in place.

"A European Commission regulation committee has to give its approval to the Air Safety Committee's recommendation. It has to be approved by all EU member states," he said.

"We highly appreciate that this problem has been settled," he said.

"We did our best and these strong efforts should be maintained. There should be no more bans in the future," he said.

The European Union banned all Indonesian-registered aircraft from flying over its airspace in 2007, acting on a report from the International Civil Aviation Organization which criticised the country's safety standards.

The June 2007 EU ban followed 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.