YEMENIA AIRWAYS ABANDONS 'EUROPE SUSPENSION'

SANA'A, Oct. 30 (Saba) - The Yemenia Airways has abandoned a
previous decision suspending flights to Europe, particularly France,
announcing it will resume flights to the continent in December, the
state-run September 26 website has reported quoting an official at
the company.

The decision comes after the government ordered the company to
resume journeys to Europe and pledged to support the company to cope
with obstacles, mainly economic, the flights will see no halt, the
official said.

The suspension decision was triggered by assault that followed the
crash of one of the company's airliners into the Indian Ocean in
late June.

Yemen rejected claims that the company was responsible for the crash
that killed about 152 passengers and crew members, most French and
Comorian people.

Our company always follows world safety standards, putting the
safety of its clients ahead of other air transport priorities,
chairman of the company said.

Away from the media, insurance companies had paid compensations for
the families of the victims and the cost of the airplane, he
affirmed.

The compensations were deemed an apparent confession by those who
tried to exploit the incident and harm the company's image and clear
evidence that the plane had no technical fault, he said, pointing to
claims afterwards the crash that the company safety and maintenance
policies were ineffective.

All accusations that the company was responsible for the fall were
baseless, he said, affirming the European Airbus Company awarded the
Yemenia a perfect maintainer certificate.

Moreover, the company continues flights to many destinations and
plans to add more carriers into its fleet to meet soaring demand,
start flights to new destinations, and replace its 310-300 aircrafts
with modern 320 or 737-800 Boeing airplanes.

Investigations into the June 30 crash off Comoros were underway,
with the mouthpiece of the Ruling Party in Yemen reporting last week
that a French missile was behind the incident.

The Almotamar website said the missile was fired by French warships
while conducting a military exercise in the region.

FR