Airlines from Djibouti, the Republic of Congo and São Tomé and Príncipe are no longer allowed to land in the European Union. They have been added to the EU’s list of banned airlines, updated by the European Commission on 27 November. They justified the decision saying that there were “safety deficiencies identified in the system of oversight by the aviation authorities of these countries”. This is the twelfth update to the list.

The Angolan company TAAG Angola Airlines, which the Commission said had made “notable progress” to resolve its security problems, remains restricted but is now allowed to increase the number of planes it flies into Portugal. Ukraine’s Mediterranean Airlines, banned in the EU until now, will be allowed to restart flights with a single aircraft. Other Ukrainian companies, Volare and Ukraine Cargo Airways, disappeared from the list because they lost their airline licences. The Ukrainian airline Motor Sich was also removed from the list.

In a statement, the Commission said that the European Aviation Safety Agency had asked for several monitoring visits to evaluate the situation of aviation companies and agencies in Albania, Egypt, Kyrgyzstan and Yemen. There was “better cooperation” and “increased progress” in Albania, Angola, Egypt, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.