ASEAN support sought on EU flight ban (The Jakarta Post)

20/07/07
DENPASAR: Indonesia is seeking support from its Southeast Asian neighbors to convince the European Union, which recently banned Indonesian carriers from flying into the EU, that the quality of its airlines is improving.

The ASEAN Transportation Working Group is meeting here until Friday. Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Supriyadi Ervan said Thursday that an EU representative, Klaus Gael, had been invited to the meeting despite the ban not being on the meeting's agenda.
At the meeting, talks were continued on liberalizing the airline industry in the region, the nations of which have committed to creating an ASEAN "Single Aviation Market" by 2015. The working group also discussed cooperation with non-ASEAN countries such as Japan, South Korea, India, China, the United States and the EU.

As for the ASEAN open sky policy, Ervan said the region had not yet reached an agreement on issues such as territorial boundaries, safeguard policies, final provisions and protocols 7 and 8 on the liberalization of the third and fourth freedoms of the air, which would open routes to every ASEAN city.

The third freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo from one's own country to another, while the fourth freedom is the right to carry passengers or cargo from another country to one's own.

Indonesia offered the cities of Balikpapan, Batam, Biak, Makassar, Manado, Palembang and Pontianak for liberalization, insisting it wants the process to take place gradually. Malaysia and Singapore are calling for a faster, more immediate liberalization process. -- JP