Red light for Croatia Airlines from FAA

The American federal aviation administration, the FAA, yesterday, on their Internet webpage published that Croatia does not meet the standards of the international civil aviation organisation, ICAO. The checks were carried out in January 2008 after Croatia Airlines signed an agreement with United Airlines. The deal allowed for passengers to fly with Croatia Airlines to a European destination and then continue their journey to America using United. Croatia has therefore been rated in the “category 2” class. This means that Croatia either does not have the needed laws and regulations for trans-Atlantic flights or employees in the country’s aviation industry are not trained in the areas of technical knowledge, aircraft inspection and so on.

Category 2 means that airlines from Croatia cannot fly towards the Unites States. In 2006 Serbia was placed on category 2 after having a category 1 status for years although many believed there were political reasons behind the decision due to the fact that the FAA gave the country’s national airline a mark of 98 out of a 100 which is more than enough for category 1 raising questions if Croatia deserved the category 2 status and joins nations such as Nauru, the Philippines, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Both Bulgaria and Romania were part of category 2 until January 1, 2007 when the 2 countries entered FAA CAT1 upon their entry into the European Union.