Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-12-Speech-1-065"
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"en.20040112.6.1-065"2
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"Mr President, I will concentrate on the issue of civil aviation safety. I start by offering, on behalf of my Group, our condolences to the relatives and friends of all victims of aviation accidents, not just the recent one in Sharm el-Sheikh. I firmly believe, however, that aviation safety has to be put into perspective. The industry is the most regulated and has the best safety record of any mode of public transport. When you compare the record of aviation with the carnage that occurs on our roads, and when you consider that the number of air accidents is going down, whilst the number of road accidents is going up, then any discussion on aviation safety must take these facts into account.
However, civil aviation must carry on improving its safety record. I wish to highlight four areas where improvements could be made. First there is a danger that a system similar to maritime transport's flags of convenience could creep into civil aviation. I hope EASA, the new safety agency, will urgently examine this. Member States need to increase their ramp inspections to weed out those airlines which are based in one country but register in another and have lower standards than we would expect within the European Union.
Second, there is an urgent need for a Europe-wide harmonised system of operations by way of an EU-ops. This particular issue is all the more urgent with the impending enlargement of the European Union and would include matters such as flight and duty time for cockpit and cabin crew.
Third, the whole issue of cabin safety needs to be addressed, particularly the number of emergency exits, the amount of cabin baggage – try getting on the Air France flight today from Paris, for example! – and the use of sky marshals.
Fourth, there is a need to reform the existing package travel directive which is now not only outdated, but ineffectual and allows some airlines to offer packages without being covered by the directive.
This Parliament, with the help of the Commission, has worked long and hard to improve aviation safety and we have had some success. There are still areas where more progress needs to be made. However, I repeat that aviation is the safest form of public transport and accidents, however tragic, are thankfully rare. The House would do well to await the results of any official investigations before jumping to conclusions that can often be misguided and wrong."@en1
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