Business | Aviation
GCAA ban hits British Gulf International
British Gulf International, a UAE-based operator of cargo flights in the region, is looking at options to continue in business after a government ban put its entire fleet of six An-12 aircraft out of action.
- By Shakir Husain, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:51 January 15, 2009
Dubai: British Gulf International, a UAE-based operator of cargo flights in the region, is looking at options to continue in business after a government ban put its entire fleet of six An-12 aircraft out of action.
"We just have to continue operating. [But] we have to follow the ban," general manager Ruslan Afaunov told Gulf News yesterday.
The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), the federal UAE aviation regulator, cited "numerous incidents" involving the An-12, a four-engine turboprop transport plane belonging to the bygone Soviet era, behind its decision to bar these aircraft from flying in the country's airspace.
British Gulf, a Russian-owned air cargo transportation company, with operations at Dubai and Sharjah airports, conducted its business using An-12s.
Afaunov said the company's fleet has no other types of planes and now has to work out how to continue operations.
This month, an An-12 belonging to British Gulf skidded off the runway at Sharjah International Airport during a takeoff for Afghanistan. The plane sustained unspecified damage in the incident.
In November, an An-12 plane chartered by Falcon Aviation Group, a Dubai-based logistics operator, carrying FedEx cargo had crashed in Iraq killing seven people.
A spokeswoman for Falcon told Gulf News the ban would not affect its operations because it only charted the An-12 to run special missions.
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