European Union regulators have proposed blacklisting EU airlines with poor safety records in a Feb. 16 draft of legislation that would also require tour operators to disclose the carriers being booked for their customers. The disclosure was part of passenger-rights legislation unveiled by the European Commission in Brussels that would also stop airlines from denying reservations or boarding to handicapped or infirm people and bestow to these travelers a right to free assistance both in airports and on planes. The two laws are set to be ratified shortly by the European Parliament and individual EU governments.

These proposals augment EU laws passed last year that allow for the blacklisting of non-European planes that fail safety inspections and increase compensation to passengers for denied boarding and cancellations.

The plan to widen the blacklisting of airlines and force tour operators to identify carriers results from the January 2004 crash into the Red Sea of an Egyptian charter plane bound for Paris (ASW, Feb. 7). At least some of the 148 mainly French passengers and crew killed on the Flash Airlines flight weren't informed of the airline with which they would be flying and certainly didn't know that Switzerland had banned the Flash 737-300 plane they were on because of safety concerns.

For more information, see http://www.iasa.com.au/black.htm.