Air transport safety, civil aviation: Community improvement strategy

In adopting the report by Mrs Anne McINTOSH (PPE, UK), the European Parliament welcomed the Commission's submission of the communication on defining a Community aviation safety improvement strategy, which was a first step towards fulfilling the request by Parliament to prepare suitable measures. Parliament called on the Commission to draw up a 'black list' of third-country carriers which did not meet EU safety standards, with the aim of refusing them permission to land or take off in the EU. Parliament also adopted a number of amendments concerning measures which needed to be taken as a matter of urgency but which were not mentioned in the communication: - establishment of mandatory incident reporting systems and of a European confidential system of voluntary incident reporting; - establishment of a European data bank on air accidents and incidents; - measures to reduce injuries in the event of an accident: impact protection, fire survivability, the provision of passenger smoke hoods, the installation of water mist systems, the fitting of externally mounted cameras and aircraft evacuation; - measures to reduce third party risk in the vicinity of airports; - measures to eliminate the worldwide trade in counterfeit spare parts; - regulation of the admission of personal luggage to cabins. In addition to the introduction of intra-Community rules on flight and duty time for aircrew and cabin crew, it was recommended that common standards be drawn up concerning the training and licensing requirements for cabin crew and ground staff. �