Italian partner in Flash Airlines?

[Zingaro]

Regardless of the final proven cause of the crash of the Flash Air B737, what do the hundreds of Italian passengers who have recently been flown by the company think!
It appears from some comments made on the crash thread that the aircraft was alleged to have been in a terrible state, at least on the inside!
So, who is the Italian partner/owner of Flash Air that is happy to let such an aircraft transport fellow Italians.Seat belts broken-missing panels-seats fixed with wire!-all alleged of course!
I certainly would like to know so that I can avoid his aircraft in the future!!!!
Maybe someone knows somebody who has recently travelled with Flash Air to confirm the state of the aircraft but with the Swiss authority already having condemned the company the question remains!

Hearts and minds to all lost soles, crew and pax alike.

[Boss Raptor]

The Italian tour operator being mentioned is Alpitour, however there is nothing to confirm that they are also the Italian partners who started the business with the Egyptians.

[Pax Vobiscum]

Boss Raptor, can you answer a couple of questions that have been bugging me. Without specific reference to the Flash tragedy:

1. To ban an airline from your airspace seems like a severe measure to me. I assume that this doesn't happen very often and wouldn't normally be taken for a 'trivial' technical breach of the relevant regulations?

2. Why wouldn't a ban by an EC associate member be automatically reflected in other EC countries? I'd really rather not be flying with a charter outfit that can't satisfy the regulators elsewhere in the EC, but it seems like this could easily be the case at the moment.

[Cathar]

My understanding is that (despite what the newspapers may say) the airline was not banned from Swiss airspace, rather the Swiss refused to issue further permits to conduct commercial services to/from Switzerland. Nevertheless this is still a rare and severe measure and one that would only be taken with very good reason.

The information on the Swiss inspections and refusal of permits will have been shared with other states under the ECAC SAFA programme. While it is open to individual states to ban an airline on the basis of the action in another state, most will for legal reasons need to establish further evidence about the safety of an airline before refusing or withdrawing permits.

Draft EC legislation on the safety of non EC aircraft which is nearing adoption does provide a mechanism for reviewing bans imposed by individual states and allows the EC Commission to recommend the extension of such bans across the EC.

[Boss Raptor]

Just purely from my own experience and the UK;

An individual operator can be grounded/warned by a UK CAA Safety Oversight Inspector (Flight Ops. and/or Engineering, who I believe also has to be an ICAO Inspector, to facility powers over a foreign acft which an ordinary CAA Inspector doesn't have, CAA Flight Ops. Quality Assurance is the special team that deals with foreign carriers and SAFA). I forget the variety of violations under the ICAO regs.

Foreign aircraft are inspected by such UK CAA/ICAO inspectors under the 'SAFA' programme. SAFA = Safety Assessment of Foreign Acft Programme http://www.jaa.nl/safa/safa.html

A ban from airspace is an escalating situation/sanction and is carried out at government level by DOTR acting under ICAO statute 'for failing to provide safety oversight' after a series of failed inspections on the particular states' aircraft and failure to apparently rectify the problems. This happened in 1997 to Nigeria and the ban from the UK was for over a year, Nigeria retaliated and banned UK aircraft, whilst the rest of Europe let them fly on.

Some states are suspended from membership of ICAO as a whole, such as Liberia (reason is that ICAO considers them incapable of fulfilling 'safety oversight' because of the lack of government and civil war), however again the UK will blanket ban them whilst other European states let them in.

When we are talking EU we should correctly be saying ECAC/ JAA. Again I am surmising however I believe that although information is filed and shared across the SAFA members (and with ICAO) jurisdiction remains with the individual state. The UK not surprisingly being more active and conscientious than most. Implementation, accepted standards and action frankly varies across the JAA states. We go back to old fashioned 'sovereign territory' rules as to a states powers within its' borders...one state may let the plane fly away with a warning (easy option) whilst UK CAA will just stop it there and then until all the problems are put right.

Personal comment - the standards of safety oversight and implementation on European ECAC/JAA registered aircraft is variable across the whole of Europe. I have seen many other European countries aircraft, facilities and oversight procedures which the UK CAA would just not sanction. If we cannot create/maintain these standards within Europe with all European nations/authorities/carriers what hope do we have on enforcing a cohesive SAFA programme on overseas aircraft/carriers - I took redelivery of a B757 recently from a European national carrier, records were appauling and not i.a.w. JAR's, answer 'well our XXXXXX CAA says it is and it's ok'

Will try to do better tomorrow...chopped the end off my finger with a carving knife this afternoon...blood and textbooks dont mix :\

[Grandpa]

According to French broadcast and TV tonight Alpitour and hotel personnel are doing the most they can to prevent journalists from speaking to Italian tourists who arrived there with same aircraft that crashed later after take-off.

[Zingaro]

Bravo Alpitour eh! but, they will never keep the Italian tourist´s mouths closed so the truth will out and I hope the investigators will take note.

[Pax Vobiscum]

Many thanks to Cathar and Boss Raptor, helpful and informative posts, confirming my personal, uninformed guesswork.

I hope some good may come out of this disaster in the form of closer co-operation among the European authorities responsible for aviation safety (but then I was ever the dreamer).

PS Hope the finger recovers well and soon BR.

[Boss Raptor]

Just picked up on this from the JAA SAFA page link I posted above

'Depending on the volume of foreign flights and the availability of inspectors in each ECAC Member State, the number of inspections may vary from relatively few to several hundred each year.'

Well that just about says it all about the implementation of SAFA, different states, different budgets, different priorities...

[Skunkie]

:( Alpitour ia connected with Neos, an Italian low cost/charter company...all they charter are made by alpitour, but one thing to remember is that the goal of tour operator is to fill the aircraft with as much passengers as they can, regardless safety.
Neos is getting thru a bad periob and , if they haven't an aicraft to guarantee , they use whatever they find...obviously Alpitour people is not informed...
Since Neos started (B737-800) they flew for that tour operator.

I find it awful the loss of infos about other company, both as a crew and as a passenger!

Neos started their adventure flying only with Alpitour, and now Alpitour (one of the oldest charter company) is breaking down....