Brussel: Cypriotische luchtvaartmaatschappij moet veiligheid verbeteren (en)

The European Commission has warned a Cypriot airline that unless it improves its safety standards it will be added to the bloc's airline blacklist, which bans air carrier companies from using EU air space.

The EU executive has said that it would keep a "watchful eye" on Ajet - formerly known as Helios Airways - to make sure that promises of corrective action made by the airline and the Cypriot control authorities are implemented.

If banned, it would be the first EU-based airline company to be blacklisted.

"We are going to keep a closer watch on a number of carriers operating frequent flights in Europe," EU transport commissioner Jacques Barrot said in a statement on Thursday (12 October).

A Helios Airways plane crashed near Athens last year killing all 121 people on board and was blamed by a Greek investigator on poor technical checks and human error in a report released on Tuesday (10 October), something which Ajet disputes.

EU governments agreed last year to set up the EU-wide blacklist after a spate of airline crashes in the summer of 2005, among them the Helios flight.

The list was drawn up in March this year and is part of a broader European effort to improve passenger safety. The list is updated regularly and is based on information from - and it applies to - the 25 member states as well as Norway and Switzerland.

Besides Ajet, the commission will also keep a close eye on Russia's Pulkovo Aviation, Pakistan International Airways and Ghana's Johnsons Air.

The commission also added Kenya's DAS Air Cargo and Uganda's Dairo Air Services, Afghanistan's Ariana Afghan Airlines as well as all of the 27 companies from the Kyrgyz Republic to its blacklist.

Most of the airlines on the list are from Africa's poorest nations. They can only be removed after meeting international airline safety standards and passing inspection from European experts.

A total of 68 carriers _ 19 from Congo, 21 from Liberia, 18 from Sierra Leone and 10 from Swaziland _ have stopped operations because their licenses were revoked by national authorities after they were included on the blacklist, the commission said.