The EU ban – Djamal’s side of the story

The ban is still on!

As we all are aware, the European Union (EU) has decided to maintain its ban on all of the country’s airlines from flying to its member countries.

This policy, obviously, caught many Indonesian authorities by surprise because before they were quite optimistic that the ban would be lifted in October or November this year.

As it turned out, it was not the case.

Following is a recently published interview conducted by a colleague of mine with Transport Minister Juman Syafii Djamal.

Of course, it reflects the Minister’s side of the story only.

If we want to see things in perspective, probably we should also take the following information into consideration (although it goes without saying that it will be difficult to verify whether this information is accurate or not):

1. The Air Transport Director General was asked to submit a detailed Corrective Action Plan about air transport safety improvements in Indonesia. He, instead, came up with the so-called a Road Map to Zero Accident, which of course was not what EU wanted to see.

2. Even then, the so-called Road Map was submitted later the initially agreed schedule.

3. Finally, there was also a problem of “language barrier.”

Pheew….what a mess!

“Frankly I’m confused myself”

Almost six months since the European Union (EU) announced its ban on Indonesian airlines to fly over Europe the situation has not gotten any better. Initially, there were letters from the EU addressed to the Indonesian authorities, expressing their concerns over a string of air accidents that had happened in Indonesia over the past three years, and asking whether those mishaps were pure accidents, or whether they were caused by systemic errors in our air transportation system.

At that point, the Transport Ministry was in a phase of reorganization, and possibly the Indonesian response did not come fast enough. But as soon as Jusman Syafii Djamal was named Transport Minister, he immediately sent his Director General of Air Transport to Europe to join the annual meeting of the International Air Transportation Association, but the Director General was rejected for unclear reasons.

Following excerpts of a recent interview with Djamal about the latest developments regarding the fly ban.

Q: Why has the EU still not lifted the flying ban?

A: Frankly, I am confused myself, because the ban was issued without their having carried out any audit at all. EU never created a set of procedure for decently barring airlines from flying, and they have no respect for other countries' sovereignty. They announced the ban directly over the Internet, on their website. Other countries would have sent their ambassador to see me in case there were any concerns about flight safety in our country. They always do that. That is the standard procedure in inter-state communication and international cooperation. But EU is different. They just issued their ban on the Internet.

Q: Is that the standard EU procedure or specifically in the case of Indonesia.

A: Specifically in the case of Indonesia, it seems. With other countries they deliver letters, as is usual. And there is also another difference (in treatment). With other countries their ban is applied to the airlines having flights to Europe only. However, with Indonesia it was aimed at all our airline companies, which they said were 51 in number whereas actually we had only 47. And they identified all our airline companies as “unknown airlines.”

Q: Unknown airlines?

A: That was what they said in their first announcement on their website. All of the 51 Indonesian airlines are unknown airlines. That was also what they said in their letter to the president and vice president, delivered through me. That clearly proves that their information is inaccurate—aside from the fact that they are not giving the Indonesian civil aviation authorities to say what they need to say.

Q: And what was your personal reaction as Transport Minister at that time?
A: Actually it's O.K. with me. At first, I thought, maybe we did have some shortcomings, or even faults. Something that happened because we were having a change of Transport Ministers. For that reason, we said we would hold a dialog and cooperate in the process of finding a solution. So we sent a special presidential team led by Chappy Hakim to the EU headquarters to tell them we shared their concerns about air safety. I myself also wrote a letter to the EU official who signed the ban, and that’s why we hoped we could cooperate with the EU. Air safety cannot be improved by bans, it must be done by international cooperation. That’s what we emphasized.

Q: What happened to the special presidential envoy and the team?

A: They were not received with the courtesy that befits a visiting team from a friendly country. They kept telling us this was a technical problem and asked the team members to sign all sorts of forms, just like we do when we want to get our ID cards. We did all that patiently, and finally they understood the situation of the air transportation in Indonesia. They followed that up by sending an audit team to Indonesia from Nov.5-9.

Q: The media made it sound as if their visit went fine.

A: We were very open about whatever they wanted to know. And at the end of their visit, in a letter addressed to me, they didn't indicate that anything was wrong. Other audit teams do it differently—like the American or Australian teams for example, who listed all the points that needed attention. But this team only said that everything had been observed, and that the frequency and intensity of the internal control at those airlines should be improved. So too with their recommendations to the Transport Ministry, in which they asked to step up the supervision over the civil aviation industry in Indonesia. Therefore, we assumed that air safety had sufficiently improved.

Q: And ... ?

A: Last Nov. 19-20 they met and we also were given a chance to speak, although for only for 20 minutes. It was the Director General or Air Transport who spoke. According to the reports we received from our ambassador, everything went well. They lauded the progress that had been made in air safety but asked for time to make sure that the improvements were permanent.

Q: So the latest ban was issued after that meeting that went so well?

A: Yes. They did not sent a letter to me but put the ban on their website. Up to this moment the EU ambassador has not come to see me to deliver a letter. This is uncommon in relations between two friendly states, or in the international air transport community.

Q: What will be our next step?

A: I conveyed all that information to the president, and he asked me for recommendations in my capacity as the Transport Minister. Four points received the president's approval: 1. We would send a letter to the EU to express our disappointment over the extension of the ban. 2. If the EU flight ban was continued, we would call off the talks about an open air policy because we consider it unfair that the EU should be given access to our airspace while we were barred from flying in theirs. 3. We want to learn from them because it could be that their standards are higher than ours, and so we want to exercise our right to carry out ramp checks, checks on the air safety systems on KLM and Lufthansa aircraft landing in Indonesia. For learning purposes, what's the difference between Garuda Indonesia’s and their aircraft. 4. The president will put off his scheduled visit to Europe.