Nepal still on EU aviation blacklist

Kathmandu, Nov. 30: The European Commission (EC) has continued its ban on Nepali Airlines.

According to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s EU Air Safety List updated last week, all air carriers certified by the authorities with responsibility for regulatory oversight in Nepal continue to be prohibited from flying over the Union’s skies. In other words, Nepal still remains on the EU’s aviation blacklist.

The EC has elaborated on this decision in the Official Journal of the European Union. There, it has stated that “at this time, there are no grounds for amending the list of air carriers, which are subject to an operating ban within the European Union with respect to air carriers from Nepal.”

The Union has long raised concerns about the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) being both a regulator and a service provider for the aviators of Nepal. It has long held that this presents a possible conflict of interest.

However, during a meeting on November 10, CAAN provided the Commission with documents about the adoption of new regulations which, it assured, would ensure the functional separation between its regulatory and service provider roles. The point the Authority highlighted was that there would be no transfer of staff between the regulation and service delivery sections. 

That meeting was a follow-up to another discussion held in September 14 when CAAN had provided the EC with information regarding aviation safety oversight in Nepal and Nepal’s status in the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) safety audit.

However, it appears that these assurances were not enough – at least for the 

time being.

But this does not mean that the door is closed on Nepali airliners ever being able to fly inside European territory. 

In statement issued on Monday, CAAN Director General Pradeep Adhikari and European Union’s Ambassador to Nepal Nona Deprez pointed out that the implementation of the new CAAN regulation and Nepal’s progress in aligning with international safety standards would allow the EC to consider whether an on-site assessment visit to Nepal would be organised in 2023. 

“The European Commission therefore intends to carry out, with the assistance of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, and the support of its member states, the visit to Nepal in the coming months,” the statement read. 

In the visit, the Commission will gather and study evidence, based on which, it will then decide whether to continue or lift the ban on Nepali airline companies.

The 27-nation bloc banned all Nepali airlines from flying over its skies in December 2013 citing safety concerns. Since then, though, Nepal has made significant improvements – a fact also recognised by ICAO in April this year when it awarded the country an effective implementation score of 70.1 per cent in its safety audit, above the global average of 67.2 per cent.