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Checking International Airline's Safety
You can check fares, fees and flight schedules for just about any airline in the world with a few keystrokes or a single phone call. But checking the safety of an international airline is a much more complicated task.
European and US regulators evaluate aviation safety, and the airline industry itself has a world-wide safety-audit program, but it's difficult for travelers to check airline safety when buying tickets. There's no restaurant-inspector's score posted on the airplane door or government crash-test star rating printed on your ticket.
That's unfortunate, since interest in airline safety is high. It's been a bad year for aviation fatalities, with more than 700 people killed in 16 crashes around the world so far in 2009. Many involved little-known airlines---some already on watch lists for safety concerns.
"There's no perfect solution at the moment, but it's undoubtedly getting better," said Geoff Want, principal adviser on airline safety at Rio Tinto Group, a global mining company that has its own list of carriers approved for employee travel.
Government regulators in Europe and the US take different approaches to aviation safety.
The European Union evaluates airlines and their planes and publishes a "blacklist" of unacceptable carriers, most recently updated just two weeks ago. The EU blacklist is available on the Internet at ec.europa.eu/transport/(click on "Air," then "List of airlines banned within the EU")
Be prepared, it's long and complex: 233 airlines are completely banned, and eight are allowed to operate under restrictions and conditions. Though its focus started as an airline-by-airline evaluation, the EU has moved more toward building the blacklist on evaluations of entire countries -all airlines from 15 countries have a blanket ban from the EU and are among the 233 cited.
The US Federal Aviation Administration evaluates countries, not carriers. US inspectors decide if a country's aviation infrastructure is up to snuff by counting the number of inspectors watching over airlines, assessing air-traffic-control procedures and evaluating funding and legal authority of aviation regulators. The FAA evaluation is based largely on standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations-chartered group. (US airlines are required to meet or exceed international safety standards.)
The FAA says 101 countries have been assessed; 79 have Category 1 status, meaning the US believes the country meets international standards, and 22 fall into Category 2. Category 2 doesn't mean airlines from that country are banned, only that any new service and airline passenger-sharing ties are frozen. That can have economic impact on a country and its airlines, and the threat of a Category 2 downgrade can prompt improvement.
An FAA spokeswoman says its International Aviation Safety Assessments list, available atwww.faa.gov/about/initiatives/iasa. is "one tool a consumer can use to decide on air travel."
There's surprisingly little overlap between the FAA and EU lists. Airlines from Angola, Benin, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Rwanda and Zambia are banned on the EU blacklist, but those countries aren't evaluated at all by the FAA. B0th EU and US regulators share concerns on Congo, Indonesia and Swaziland. The FAA rates Zimbabwe, Israel, the Philippines, Serbia and Montenegro plus several Latin American and Caribbean nations, including Belize, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua, in Category 2, but not the EU.
The airline industry has come up with its own list of sorts, and it can be useful to travelers. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the industry's world-wide trade group, began working on a standard auditing regimen nine years ago, and it has evolved into an extensive safety check now required of all airlines to be a member of IATA. Passing the audit became mandatory for membership earlier this year; 21 airlines didn't and were removed.
IATA says 330 airlines around the world have passed its audit. Of those, 230 are IATA members-another 100 airlines wanted to be certified even if not IATA members. US and EU regulators accept IOSA certification to meet requirements that airlines funneling passengers to each other through code-sharing agreements audit each other for safety issues. And a few countries -Egypt is one -require IOSA certifìcation for any airline flying there. The list is available atwww.iata.org/iosa.
如何查看國際航班安全
如果你想查看世界上任何航空公司的票價(jià)、收費(fèi)以及航班安排，只需點(diǎn)擊幾下鼠標(biāo)或者打個(gè)電話就行。但是，如果你想知道某個(gè)國際航空公司的安全系數(shù)，那可要復(fù)雜得多。
歐洲和美國的監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)都會(huì)評(píng)估航空公司的安全性，航空業(yè)本身也有一套全球安全審查系統(tǒng)，但是，旅客在購買機(jī)票的時(shí)候很難了解到航空公司的安全性。機(jī)艙門口可沒有貼著類似餐館檢驗(yàn)機(jī)構(gòu)評(píng)分的東西，旅客的機(jī)票上也沒有印著政府失事概率測試的星級(jí)評(píng)級(jí)。
這是一個(gè)很不幸的事實(shí)，因?yàn)榇蟊妼娇展景踩缘年P(guān)注度非常高。2009年是航空災(zāi)難記錄非常糟糕的一年，全球共發(fā)生飛機(jī)失事事故16起，超過700人死亡。許多事故都與名不見經(jīng)傳的航空公司有關(guān)，其中一些因其安全顧慮已經(jīng)被列入觀察名單。
礦業(yè)公司力拓集團(tuán)負(fù)責(zé)航空安全的主管顧問杰夫·華恩特表示，目前還沒有完美的解決辦法，但是情況無疑正在好轉(zhuǎn)。力拓集團(tuán)有一份航空公司名單，員工旅行只選擇這個(gè)名單上航空公司的航班。
歐洲和美國的政府監(jiān)管部門對航空安全則采取了不同的方式。
歐盟會(huì)對航空公司及其機(jī)隊(duì)進(jìn)行評(píng)估，并會(huì)發(fā)布一個(gè)不合格的航空公司的"黑名單"，就在兩周前剛剛更新過一次。歐盟的黑名單可以通過互聯(lián)網(wǎng)在ec.europa.eu/transport/上查到(點(diǎn)擊“航空”，接著就是“歐盟禁飛的航空公司名單”)。
不過要有心理準(zhǔn)備，這個(gè)名單很長，也很復(fù)雜：共有233家航空公司被完全禁飛，八家航空公司被允許在某些限制和條件下飛行。雖然歐盟的關(guān)注點(diǎn)開始是對航空公司逐個(gè)進(jìn)行評(píng)估，但是歐盟近來已經(jīng)更多地通過對整個(gè)國家的評(píng)估來構(gòu)建黑名單一→其中有15個(gè)國家的所有航空公司收到的都是歐盟的全面禁令，它們也在上述233家航空公司之列。
美國航空管理局評(píng)估的對象是各個(gè)國家、而不是航空公司。美國監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)通過計(jì)算航空業(yè)監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)配備的人員數(shù)量、評(píng)估航空運(yùn)輸量的控制流程以及航空監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)的融資和法律權(quán)限，來決定一個(gè)國家的航空業(yè)是否會(huì)進(jìn)入“黑名單”。美國聯(lián)邦航空管理局的評(píng)估大多數(shù)基于聯(lián)合國下屬專門機(jī)構(gòu)國際民用航空組織制定的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)(美國航空公司必須達(dá)到或者超過國際安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn))。
美國航空管理局表示，已經(jīng)對101個(gè)國家進(jìn)行了評(píng)估179個(gè)國家為一類，表示美國認(rèn)為這些國家已經(jīng)達(dá)到國際安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn);22個(gè)國家為二類。二類并不表示來自這些國家的航空公司會(huì)被禁飛，只是說明任何新服務(wù)和航空公司乘客分享關(guān)系將被凍結(jié)。這會(huì)對一個(gè)國家及其航空公司產(chǎn)生經(jīng)濟(jì)影響，而二類國家會(huì)面臨降級(jí)的威脅，這可以促使航空公司改善其安全性。
美國航空管理局一位發(fā)言人表示，其國際航空安全評(píng)估名單可以在www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/iasa上找到，這是“消費(fèi)者可以用來決定航空旅行選擇的一個(gè)工具”。
出人意料的是，美國航空管理局和歐盟的名單很少有重合。來自安哥拉、貝寧、哈薩克斯坦、吉爾吉斯、利比亞、加蓮、塞拉利昂、蘇丹、阿富汗、柬埔寨、盧旺達(dá)和贊比亞的航空公司都在歐盟禁飛名單之上，但是這些國家甚至都沒有被美國航空管理局評(píng)估過。歐盟和美國的監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)都對剛果、印度尼西亞和史瓦濟(jì)蘭的航空公司表示顧慮。美國航空管理局將贊比亞、以色列、菲律賓、塞爾維亞和黑山，還有幾個(gè)拉美和加勒比海國家，包括伯利茲、海地、洪都拉斯和尼加拉瓜，列為二類國家，但是歐盟并未對國家有類似的評(píng)級(jí)。
航空業(yè)也有自己林林總總的名單，可能會(huì)對旅客有所幫助。航空業(yè)的全球行業(yè)團(tuán)體國際航空運(yùn)輸協(xié)會(huì)(International Air Transport Association，簡稱IATA)早在9年前就開始著手安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn)審查工作，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)演變?yōu)橐粋�(gè)覆蓋范圍很大的安全檢查體系，凡是IATA的成員航空公司都要遵照執(zhí)行。今年年初，通過安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn)審查已經(jīng)是IATA成員的必備條件;有21家沒有通過安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn)審查的航空公司已被除名。
IATA表示，全球有330家航空公司已經(jīng)通過其安全標(biāo)準(zhǔn)審查。其中230家為IATA成員，另外 100家航空公司在即便還不是IATA成員的情況下也希望獲得認(rèn)證。美國和歐盟的監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)均接受IOSA認(rèn)證，滿足通過代碼共享協(xié)議互相提供客源的航空公司必須就安全問題互相審查的要求。有少數(shù)幾個(gè)國家——包括埃及，要求任何飛往該國的航空公司均要通過IOSA認(rèn)證。旅客可以在www.iata.org/iosa找到相關(guān)名單。
句型講解：
1. European and US regulators evaluate aviation safety, and the airline industry itself has a world-wide safety-audit program, but it's difficult tor travelers to check airline safety when buying tickets.
本句是分別由and和but連接的三個(gè)簡單句。最后一句中buying tickets現(xiàn)在分詞作狀語表示時(shí)間，前面可以加when或while。
語法重點(diǎn)：分詞短語作狀語
2. It's been a bad year for aviation fatalities, with more than 700 people killed in 16 crashes around the world so far in 2009.
本句是一個(gè)簡單句。其中 with more...in 2009是獨(dú)立主格結(jié)構(gòu)，對主句進(jìn)行補(bǔ)充說明，結(jié)構(gòu)為 with+名詞+過去分詞+狀語。
語法重點(diǎn)：獨(dú)立主格結(jié)構(gòu)
3. Though its focus started as an airline-by-airline evaluation, the EU has moved more toward building the blacklist on evaluations of entire countries-all airlines from 15 countries have a blanket ban行om the EU and are among the 233 cited.
本句是一個(gè)復(fù)合句。主句是the EU...are among the 233 cited，破折號(hào)后面的句子是對前面句子的補(bǔ)克說明，其中from 15 countries介詞短語作后置定語，修飾airlines。 cited過去分詞短語作后置定語，修飾233。Though引導(dǎo)讓步狀語從句。
語法重點(diǎn)：介詞短語作定語，過去分詞作定語，讓步狀語從句
4. US and EU regulators accept IOSA certification to meet requirements that airlines funneling passengers to each other through code-sharing agreements audit each other for safety issues.
本句是一個(gè)復(fù)合句。主句是US and EU...meet requirements. that引導(dǎo)同位語從句，解釋說明requirements.其中funneling passengers...code-sharing agreement現(xiàn)在分詞短語作后置定語修飾airlines.
語法重點(diǎn)：同位語從句，分詞短語作定語
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