Turkmenistan Airlines (T5, Ashgabat) will resume commercial flight operations to the European Union (EU) after the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) restored its Third Country Operator (TCO) certificate last week. The state-owned carrier was banned from the bloc's airspace in February this year after an EASA audit revealed serious safety concerns. Its Third Country Operator (TCO) certificate was subsequently revoked.
Lufthansa Consulting, which helped shepherd Turkmenistan Airlines through the recertification process, said the TCO was reinstated on October 11 following an EASA in-situ audit in Ashgabat in late September.
"Together with our client Turkmenistan Airlines we are delighted and proud of jointly having achieved this great success to reauthorize the airline as Third Country Operator," Lufthansa Consulting's Managing Director Andreas Jahnke said. "There are certain tasks to be done by the operator to ensure sustainable implementation of the measures and Lufthansa Consulting is looking forward to continuing the fruitful cooperation."
Turkmenistan Airlines had served Birmingham, GB and London Heathrow in the United Kingdom as well as Frankfurt International in Germany prior to the ban.
