Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand's Phuket Airlines, Mozambique's Linhas Aereas de Mocambique and Air Saint Thomas of the U.S. Virgin Islands are among five airlines included in a list made public today of carriers banned from flying to French airports for safety reasons.

Air Koryo of North Korea and International Air Services of Liberia are the other airlines on the blacklist published by the Paris-based Delegation Generale de l'Aviation Civile, France's civil-aviation regulator.

The government decided last week to release the names of carriers it has forbidden from flying into France following the Aug. 16 crash in Venezuela of a Medellin, Colombia-based West Caribbean Airways plane that killed all 160 people aboard, including 152 French tourists. That accident is among five worldwide in the past month, including one of an Air France airliner in Toronto in which all people aboard escaped.

``The airlines included in the blacklist cannot operate flights in any French airport,'' said Maxime Coffin, the regulator's head of security checks, at a Paris press conference. ``Its publication is a warning to other airlines: if they're not rigorous enough, they could find themselves on the list one day or another.''

Cooperating With Boeing

Chawanit Chiamcharoenvut, executive vice president of Phuket Airlines, told reporters in Bangkok today that the company is now working with Boeing Co., the manufacturer of planes it flies, as well as the International Air Transport Association and the International Civil Aviation Organization to improve safety through pilot and employee training.

France's ban will probably have ``some impact'' on the carrier's image, though operations won't be affected directly because the airline hasn't flown to Europe since April and doesn't intend to introduce flights to the region, Chawanit said.

Phuket Air's sole international routes are chartered services from Thailand to Myanmar and Japan, and ``those flights don't have any problem,'' Chawanit said.

Adao Nguenha, South Africa area manager for Linhas Aereas de Mocambique, said in a phone interview that one plane in its fleet, which belongs to a company named TransAirways, is on the French list and isn't part of the Mozambique carrier.

According to the French civil aviation regulator's list, the ban covers both Maputo, Mozambique-based LAM as well as transporter TransAirways, which used LAM's operating certificate to fly to France at an earlier point.

Web sites and phone numbers for Air Koryo or International Air Service weren't immediately available from online searches.

List's History

Air Koryo has been on the French list since 2001, according to the regulator. Phuket Airlines joined the list on June 4 and the other three carriers were all put on the list in 2004.

France first began talking about making public aviation- safety information available after the Jan. 3, 2004, crash in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, of a Boeing 737 flown by Flash Airlines, an Egyptian charter carrier, that killed all 148 passengers and crew aboard, including 135 French citizens who had arranged trips through French tour operators.

European Union countries have separate safety policies on approving airlines for serving their countries, and a carrier blacklisted in one country isn't necessarily banned elsewhere in the 25-nation bloc.

EU legislation adopted in 2004, which each country is supposed to implement in the next two years, calls for common national inspection standards for non-EU airlines and publication of a regionwide list of banned carriers. Lawmakers in February started examining whether to add any EU airlines banned by national governments to the consolidated list.

Swiss Policy

Switzerland will publish a list of forbidden airlines on Sept. 1, after Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger met last week with his French counterpart about the issue, said Anton Kohler, a spokesman for the country's Federal Office for Civil Aviation. Switzerland isn't an EU member.

``Our list consists of some specific planes and some entire companies that are banned,'' Kohler said, adding that there are 300 airlines that have access to Switzerland. He declined to give details until the list is officially released. ``We would prefer to have a European list'' so that each country doesn't have to make the safety checks itself, Kohler said.

Germany is also looking for a Europewide list, Dirk Inger, a spokesman for the country's Transport Ministry, said at a press conference in Berlin. None of the carriers on France's list serves Germany, he said.

Three carriers and four specific aircraft were banned as of 2004, said Cornelia Eichhorn, a spokeswoman for the Braunschweig, Germany-based Federal Aviation Office, in a phone interview. ``We have banned airlines, but we don't name them like the French did today,'' she said.

Five August Crashes

Five commercial aircraft worldwide have crashed this month, including the Colombian airliner. A Boeing Co. 727-200 flown by Peruvian state carrier Tans crashed in the northeastern Amazon jungle Aug. 23, killing 40 people among the 92 passengers and six crew members aboard. It was the second crash by Tans in two years. An earlier crash in 2003 killed 46 people.

On Aug. 14, a Helios Airways Boeing 737-300 crashed north of Athens, killing all 121 people aboard in Greece's worst air disaster. A Tunis Air ATR-72 regional aircraft crashed Aug. 6, on the coast of Palermo, Sicily, killing 19 people of a total 39 on board.

An Air France Airbus A-340 plane slid into a ravine Aug. 2 at Toronto Pearson International Airport after landing about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) down a 9,000-foot runway during a rainstorm. All 297 passengers and 12 crew evacuated before the airplane burst into flames.

Italy doesn't intend to publish a list of airlines that are not allowed to serve the country, Italian Transport Minister Pietro Lunardi said Aug. 27.

``Italy's position on air safety is even more radical than that of the proponents of blacklists,'' Lunardi said in a faxed statement. ``Only perfectly secure airlines must exist and be authorized to operate. The others must be banned.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Rothman in Toulouse, France at aerothman@bloomberg.net; Gabriele Parussini in Paris at gparussini@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 29, 2005 08:38 EDT