ALEX CHADWICK, host:
Back now with DAY TO DAY. I'm Alex Chadwick.
The European Union is calling for a blacklist of unsafe airlines. The EU's transportation chief in Brussels wants the 25-member states to pool all the information they have about the safety record of foreign airlines. He wants that information to be published on the Internet. This call follows the fatal crash in Greece last weekend and the one in Venezuela this week. Stephen Beard joins us from the "Marketplace" European desk in London.
Stephen, what would be the exact purpose of this blacklist?
STEPHEN BEARD reporting:
Well, the transport commissioner, as he's called, the top official looking after transportation policy in Europe, says this is all about giving the traveling public as much information about airline safety as possible. He wants to compile a list of unsafe carriers, and he wants that on the Internet so that European travelers can take a look and decide which carrier they'll use. We're talking here principally, obviously, about charter airlines operating outside the EU. These are the ones that give most cause for concern because these are not directly regulated by the EU member states.
CHADWICK: I'll bet the airlines are a little anxious about this.
BEARD: Airlines are a little anxious, and they're not actually the only ones. There are many aviation analysts who say that this plan is deeply flawed. They say it is going to be a global blacklist. It's never going to be definitive unless you've got a huge bureaucracy compiling the statistics, assessing the data, and anyway, they say, a blacklist on its own is not sufficient. Kieran Daly, editor of Air Transport Intelligence, has himself very serious doubts about the plan.
Mr. KIERAN DALY (Editor, Air Transport Intelligence): First, you've got to have some way of knowing and deciding which airlines are unsafe, which is notoriously difficult to do, especially worldwide. And then, really, if you conclude that they are unsafe, well, the only logical thing is to ban them and to ban them, of course, on a European-wide basis.
BEARD: Trouble is, he says, the EU simply doesn't have the power to do that, to ban a particular airline. It's only the individual member states that have that power.
CHADWICK: I guess it's easier in this country, just one set of national regulations, and easier to deal with all these different foreign carriers.
BEARD: Yes, absolutely. That's the key point. And also many European analysts say the American system of dealing with this issue is much better, too. They deal with it on a country-by-country basis. The US restricts or bans all carriers from countries that it deems not to have proper safety regulations. Many European analysts say that actually works pretty well.
Anyway, aviation will, no doubt, figure in today's edition of "Marketplace," and we'll also be taking a look at how venture capitalists plan to cash in on green technology.
CHADWICK: Thank you, Stephen. Stephen Beard of Public Radio's daily business show "Marketplace," produced by American Public Media.
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