DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Yemenia Airways will not attend a European Union Air Safety Committee meeting Thursday and is "extremely concerned" about being placed on a blacklist, the carrier's chairman said Wednesday.
"No one is able to attend at such short notice," Abdulkalek Saleh Al Kadi told Zawya Dow Jones by telephone late Wednesday. "All our resources are working on the crash investigation."
The European Commission invited the airline to a July 2 meeting of the E.U.'s Air Safety Committee to update it on its safety issues.
The Commission also wrote to the airline to warn that Yemenia aircraft could be banned if it fails to prove that it's dealing with safety problems.
"Of course we're concerned about being blacklisted, but the E.U. should be fair in its judgment," Al Kadi said.
"After 40 years of flying without problems, they can't suddenly decide to put us on a blacklist because of one accident."
On Tuesday, a Yemenia Airbus 310-300 came down in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday with 153 people on board as it came in to land at Moroni.
The E.U. Tuesday said problems had been found in the crashed aircraft in 2007, but Al Kadi it had worked to address the issues raised.
"Most of the issues raised were not to do with safety issues and were cosmetic," Al Kadi said. "We worked hard to fix them."
"The plane had two new engines. It's been flying all over the Yemenia network for many years without problems," he said.
-By Stefania Bianchi, Dow Jones Newswires; +971 4 3644967; Stefania.Bianchi@dowjones.com
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Publié le 01 Juillet 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones