According to the draft law, the governments of EU member states will be required to exchange information about which airlines they ban from entering their airspace. Such exchange is practiced now, but in the vast majority of states, information about authorities' claims against a particular company is usually not intended for open dissemination. If members of the European Parliament support the project promoted by Barrot, this information will become publicly available. The European Commission will publish a list of unsafe airlines on its official website.
If currently one EU state refuses to allow aircraft of a certain airline into its airspace, this does not yet mean that the company automatically loses the right to operate in all other countries of a united Europe. However, after the introduction of the new procedure, such air carriers will find it very difficult to find clients. Problems with safety standards usually arise among small airlines engaged in charter transportation.
The draft law stipulates that tour operators will be obliged to inform clients in advance which airline's aircraft they will be flying on and will not be able to change the airline immediately before departure. It is easy to understand that using an officially unsafe airline will serve as very bad advertising for a travel agency. In addition, such a flight will be more difficult to insure. And if a misfortune nevertheless occurs in the air, God forbid, the management of the travel agency may face not only material but also criminal liability, along with the management of the unsafe airline.
Given these circumstances, the vast majority of European travel agencies will prefer not to have any dealings at all with airlines that have ended up on the new European Commission list.
European authorities decided to tighten control over foreign airlines that do not comply with flight safety requirements after the crash of an Egyptian airliner in Sharm el-Sheikh on January 3, 2004. The tragedy claimed the lives of 148 people, mostly French tourists. It turned out that Flash Airlines, which owned the crashed aircraft, had been banned from flying to Switzerland since 2002. In that country, inspectors found serious violations on two Flash Airlines aircraft. After the tragedy in Sharm el-Sheikh, the French Ministry of Transport stated that it was not aware of the strict decision by its Swiss colleagues. Switzerland is not part of the EU, but it is a member of many Western European specialized organizations, including JAA (Joint Aviation Authorities) and Eurocontrol (European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation).
Prior to this case, the aviation authorities of European countries tried not to wash their dirty linen in public regarding their relations with foreign airlines that violated the rules. Of the EU member states, only Great Britain reported that in 2003 it banned three companies from entering its territory. Two of them – from Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – received a permanent ban, and another company – from Bosnia – a temporary one. The names of these companies are not disclosed.