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British Air Line Pilots' Association Calls On Tighter Rules On Virtual
Airlines By Shane Nolan |
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May 9, 2011 - The British Air Line Pilots' Association
(BALPA) represents well over 75% of all the fixed wing
pilots and helicopter aircrew based in the UK calls on
tighter rules on so called "virtual airlines" are
needed, according to the airline pilots union, BALPA.
Virtual airlines sell tickets for routes they have
contracted to other companies who supply the pilots and
aircraft. BALPA’s demand follows an accident at Cork
airport on February 10th 2011 in which six people were
killed.
The Manx 2 flight from Belfast crashed in thick fog on
its third attempt to land. A preliminary report by the
Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit has established
that the pilots were inexperienced and broke aviation
rules in the way they attempted to land the plane. |
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But Manx 2, an Isle of Man based company, has now rejected all
demands for compensation from injured passengers and families of
the deceased, claiming that in law it is a "ticket provider" and
that the service was actually run by Flightline, a Spanish
airline that BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts has established is now
facing regulatory action over "discrepancies" discovered during
safety checks.
BALPA’s General Secretary, Jim McAuslan told the programme that
he was increasingly concerned about such arrangements. "The
day’s going to come – and the public should realise it - when
you get onto an aircraft, that you need to ask yourself some
serious questions. How is this airline operating? Who’s in the
front of the aircraft? How is this aircraft maintained?
Government and regulator need to step in to stop this drift into
a virtual world of aviation".
A passenger on board the plane, Mark Dickens, said that he had
no idea he was travelling with a small Spanish airline.
"Certainly the ticket that I bought, the plane that I got on,
the guy behind the check in desk, the in-flight magazine,
everything suggested that I was flying with Manx 2", he told
Face the Facts. "I assumed they were an airline like Aer Lingus,
Easyjet or Ryanair." Face the Facts has discovered that Manx 2 has boasted in past publicity material that it was able to run flights when other airlines were grounded by bad weather. It has also described itself as "a local airline for the Isle of Man". Tim Jeans, the former managing director of Monarch Airlines, says there is "a lack of transparency" about the company. "If you look on their website, there is no sense at all that this is an airline that actually isn’t. Certainly the disclaimers on tickets and publicity material should perhaps be stronger". |