Bangladesh is to appeal to the European Commission to remove its air cargo and mail consignments from the “high-risk category”. The country claims it has taken “adequate” steps to ensure better aviation security.
A presentation of the measures taken to improve security at Bangladesh airports will be made in the hope that the EC will move it from the red category to green. This would greatly help it to resolve its image crisis.
Following the progress on security measures, UK lifted the ban on direct air cargo flights from Bangladesh in February 2018. However, the rest of the EU had kept Bangladeshi airports in the “red zone”.
Bangladeshi civil aviation officials said they had taken significant steps, such as organisational structure, training of security personnel, installation of modern ECAC-certified screening equipment, augmentation of internal quality assurance activities and national level quality control activities. They added that security at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport had been reinforced and there was ongoing training and professional development and internal quality assurance.
ICAO’s Aviation Security Audit in 2018 revealed that Bangladesh’s level of compliance in cargo security (83.88%) was above the global 74.78% and Asia Pacific’s 69.54% average. Bangladesh being a ‘high- risk country’, required a higher standard of screening for all cargo destined for the EU, but cargo is allowed in.
The EU said they acknowledged the efforts undertaken by Bangladeshi authorities in improving the level of security applied in respect of air cargo.
Source : Various Agencies