Concerns raised about Air Express Algeria after third-country operator application rejected by EASA.
Regional operator Air Express Algeria has become the first carrier from the north African state to be blacklisted by the European Commission, after failing to obtain a third-country authorisation.
Its situation has also revealed doubts over the capabilities of the civil aviation regulator ANAC Algeria.
The Commission says the airline, which has links to the Algerian energy industry, applied for European third-country operator approval in June last year.
But the European Union Aviation Safety Agency raised concerns about the carrier’s “lack of ability…to respond to identified safety deficiencies”, according to documents detailing the Commission’s latest blacklist revision.
“Notably it found that Air Express Algeria failed to produce verifiable evidence that it is maintaining a flight crew training programme,” it adds.
The airline was refused third-country authorisation in December, and this decision was communicated to ANAC Algeria — along with notification that its case would be discussed at a European Union air safety committee hearing in May 2026.
Air Express Algeria representatives did not challenge any of EASA’s findings during the hearing, but provided the committee with an overview of actions taken to support a systematic approach to addressing them — particularly the crew training issue.
But the Commission documentation says that, despite “repeated inquiries” about rectification of this issue, the carrier “failed to provide adequate clarification” on such matters as a missing training syllabus, absence of training records, and training plans.
“Air Express Algeria has failed to demonstrate that, at this stage, all pilots operating flights are fully qualified in accordance with international safety standards,” it adds.
Eight other findings from the rejected third-country application in December have also remained unresolved because, it says, the carrier’s corrective action plan relied on a “deficient” root-cause analysis.
One specific matter was the erroneous conduct of several medical evacuation flights to the EU, carried out under general aviation rules despite falling within the scope of commercial air transport regulations — which require third-country authorisation.
“This expansion into international operations, and the need to comply with international safety standards, represents a critical factor that must be fully integrated into the air carrier’s operations plans,” says the documentation.
“It also underscores the need for a civil aviation authority with robust capabilities to ensure sustained compliance with international safety standards, a requirement that, to date, has not been sufficiently demonstrated.”
The documentation notes that ANAC, which took over responsibility for civil aviation regulation in 2023, underwent an ICAO audit in February last year which uncovered “serious deficiencies” in obligations relating to resolving safety concerns, and issuing licences, authorisations, and certificates.
ANAC is taking ICAO-approved corrective actions in the operations, licensing and airworthiness domains, but the implementation level is still low.
While ANAC has “acknowledged a convergence” between the deficiencies it has detected in Air Express Algeria and those identified by EASA, the regulator did not specify their nature during the hearing nor detail the corrective actions being taken — although it claimed it was putting the carrier under greater surveillance.
Further doubt over ANAC’s oversight capabilities emerged when Air Express Algeria informed the hearing that corrective measures would not be completed until the end of this year, contradicting ANAC’s remarks that the deficiencies observed by EASA were almost fully resolved and the outstanding step would be completed by September.
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