EU flight ban only temporary: foreign minister. Yogyakarta (ANTARA News)

20/07/07

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said the flight ban imposed by the European Union on Indonesian airlines was only temporary and would not last long."With consultations, it is expected that the European Union will understand the efforts made by Indonesia in improving the flight safety of its airlines," the foreign minister said after commissioning a secondary school building here on Friday.The school building was built at a cost of Rp5.2 billion with funds contributed by the foreign ministry.

Wirayuda said the European Union was expected to review its flight ban because the policy was taken not based on political considerations but on the fact that the Indonesian flight safety team had revealed a problem in the country`s aviation system."What happened was there was lack of information because the European Union was not informed of the second report of the Indonesian aviation safety team which said that national flag carrier Garuda`s aircraft were airworthy," the foreign minister said.

He said the relevant parties had continued to hold consultations and the European Union would in the next one or two weeks send a team to Jakarta."The Foreign Ministry has sent a letter asking the European Union to have a discussion with us on the matter," Wirayuda said.The European Commission recently announced it was banning 51 Indonesian airline companies from flying to its member countries as of July 6, 2007 because of flight safety concerns.The EU experts recommended the ban in response to a series of air accidents in Indonesia earlier this year.Some quarters consider the ban to be a heavy blow to Indonesian airline companies and tourism. "Some four million European tourists visit Indonesia every year while the number of Indonesians visiting the continent is more than that," Gustanto M Hum, chairman of the Tourism Study Program of the University of North Sumatra, said recently.