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Yemen airline threatens to reconsider Airbus order
2009-07-07
SANAA (AFP) - Yemen's national carrier Yemenia warned on Tuesday it may reconsider an order to buy 10 Airbus A350s, accusing France of not being "cooperative" over the crash of one of its planes off the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros last week. "If the French position remains harsh, and if the pressure on Yemenia continues, instead of waiting for the results of the investigation... we will be forced to reconsider the deal," chairman Abdul Khaleq al-Qadi said. "We find that the French side and Airbus are not being cooperative... The French side is wronging Yemenia," he told AFP. The 19-year-old Yemenia A310 plunged into the Indian Ocean last Tuesday killing all but one of the 153 passengers and crew on board. An adolescent girl was the only survivor. Passengers of the ill-fated flight took off from Paris and stopped over in Marseille on June 29 aboard a modern Airbus A330 but they switched in Sanaa to the older A310 jet to continue to Djibouti and Moroni. Yemenia suspended some flights to the Comoros following the crash and came under strong criticism over its safety standards. France's large Comoran community held protests after the disaster, drawing 10,000 people onto the streets of Marseille to demand an end to "flying coffins". French authorities have warned Yemenia that it has to make "very big efforts" to avoid being blacklisted in the European Union, while airline officials rejected criticism of its safety standards. Yemenia is not on the EU blacklist containing the names of more than 200 airlines or firms either banned from operating in Europe or only allowed under strict restrictions. French Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau had said that the A310 was barred from entering France over "worrisome defects" detected during a maintenance check on the plane in 2007. But a French transport official later said the Airbus jet was not formally barred from entering France and had simply not returned to the country since the defects were detected. Yemen's Transport Minister Khaled al-Wazir said the plane was checked in May 2009 in Sanaa under Airbus supervision. Airbus said the aircraft was one of 214 A310s in service with 41 operators across the globe. Yemenia ordered the 10 A350 XWB (Extra Wide Body) aircraft during the Dubai air show in November 2007 in a deal estimated to be worth two billion dollars. The government of impoverished Yemen owns 51 percent of Yemenia's shares, while neighbouring oil-rich Saudi Arabia holds the rest. Initially founded as Yemen Airways in August 1961, the airline operates passenger and cargo services to about 30 international and domestic destinations in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Far East. The airline has a fleet of about 10 planes, including Airbus and Boeings. Airbus has said that in the first five months of 2009 it received orders for just 11 new aircraft and 21 cancellations amid the global economic crisis, though orders picked up at the Paris Air Show in June. On June 1, an Airbus A330 belonging to Air France crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris killing 228 people. An inquiry concluded that defective air speed monitors were "a factor but not the cause" of the crash, the worst in Air France's history.
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