Monday, February 9, 2009

EU travel ban = history?

A spot of good news for the beleaguered tourism industry (finally): the European Union is mulling over overturning the travel ban on Indonesian airliners.

The brutal ban, in effect since the summer of '07 following a spate of accidents, put a crimp in Visit Indonesia year and has been a major dent in the operations of prominent airlines like Garuda. Even during the best of times, airlines are an awful business (remember slimeball Gordon Gekko's advice in the movie Wall Street?), and this - combined with runaway fuel prices - has been no help to the bottom line.

The ban's slated to be scrapped this summer, in the wake of new safety measures implemented by Indonesian authorities. Given that the EU has already given the green light to dodgy operators like Pakistan International - where I think every passenger is given a parachute, along with their coffee and peanuts - it's only fair that the 51 Indonesian airliners be given a long-awaited break.


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3 comments:

Akhyari said...

Bro, there's a huge gap between our garuda-mandala, and other airline such as Batavia or Sriwijaya Air. Not to mention the late adam air. I must say that i feel much safer in Garuda than in other airlines, even Qantas or BA, or MAS. Mandala gives same safety-feeling. Batavia and Srivijaya give the reverse. Lion is somewhere in the middle, but messy. Banning airlines like Batavia-Srivijaya, or even lion, to fly to europe (if they are capable) is acceptable, but garuda? naaah....
Airlines in Brazil, Russia, USA experienced a very frequent catastrope,yet EU didnt issue any ban.
It is time to open the ban, for Garuda, and Mandala.

Christopher Taylor said...

I agree, I've always been impressed with Garuda, whenever I've flown it ... can't always say the same for American carriers!

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