Azerbaijan to face no problems in operating flights to Europe

"At present, Azerbaijan is buying new aircrafts which meet European standards. Therefore, there will be no problems in making flights to Europe," a source said.

The EU recently published a list of 4,000 airlines that are recommended to monitor emissions. This list includes also Azerbaijani Airlines, Silkway, MIL Azerbaijan, SW Business AV, as well as Azerbaijan Airlines JSC.

Under a new order, from January 1, 2010, all airlines operating flights to EU must monitor harmful emissions from their aircrafts and bring them into accordance with the new EU ecological standards by 2012.

The list also includes aircarriers from various countries, such as Lufthansa, U.S Airways, Emirates, Alitalia, Quantas, etc. Russian Air Force and Emergency Ministry planes were also included.

Russian air carriers that figure on the list include 'Aeroflot', 'Atlant-Soyuz', 'Transaero', 'Sibir' and its freight branches - 'Globus', 'SkyExpress', 'UTair' , 'KD Avia', Gazpromavia.

Participation in the program is obligatory because on a background of successful cuts in CO2 emissions and other harmful gases in other spheres in the aviation industry, the rate of these cuts is increasing quickly. In order not to jeopardize the success of the entire ecological program, the aviation companies have been presented a choice - either bring their fleet into line with the new conditions or no more flights to the EU.

/Trend Capital/