The EU on Wednesday lifted its entry ban on Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and on Blue Wing Airlines of Surinam, but refused to do the same with Garuda and other Indonesian airlines because of ongoing safety concerns, according to DPA. A statement from the EU's Transport Commission said both PIA and Blue Wing Airlines had "successfully completed the implementation of a corrective action plan following their inclusion in (the EU's) list (of banned airlines)." The EU added Indonesia's national airline, Garuda, and all other Indonesian airlines to its list of carriers that are not allowed to fly into EU territory in June. The ban was imposed after an Adam Air jet plunged into the sea in central Indonesia in January, killing all 102 people on board, and a Garuda plane crashed in Yogyakarta, Central Java, with the loss of 21 lives in March. While no Indonesian airline flew to EU member states before the crashes, the ban obliges travel agencies to warn customers that Indonesian airlines are unsafe if they sell package tours that use such carriers. Last week, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged the EU to act swiftly to lift the ban, saying Indonesia was making every effort to improve aviation safety. But a Transport Commission spokesman said Wednesday that improvements were still needed. "Clear progress is there, but more effort is still needed to make sure that all the deficiencies have been tackled and that we can lift our ban. That is not the case yet. We still need some improvements," said Michele Cercone, the spokesman for Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso promised to send a team of experts back to Indonesia to speed up a review of airline safety in the country during his visit to Jakarta last week. Wednesday's update of the EU blacklist, which takes place every three months, also acknowledged the efforts being made by the civil aviation authorities of Iran, Ukraine and Angola to improve safety.
