GCAA ban hits British Gulf International

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.