ISTANBUL - A private Turkish airline grounded by Dutch and German authorities for safety reasons threatened Friday to sue both countries unless a satisfactory explanation was given for the ban.
"Our planes have been grounded but no reasons have been given," charged Cankut Bagana, the president of Onur Air.
"If we do not get an explanation, we will take them to court in The Netherlands and Germany," he told a press conference here, Anatolia news agency reported.
Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said a meeting between civil aviation officials from the three countries was scheduled for Monday in the Netherlands to settle the dispute.
"We expect the problem to be resolved with mutual understanding," Yildirim told Anatolia.
Meanwhile, Swiss and French authorities late Friday said they were banning Onur Air flights until further notice.
The Swiss aviation safety office said the decision had been taken for safety reasons, while French authorities did not give a reason.
On Thursday, Dutch authorities informed the Istanbul-based Onur Air that it had been grounded for a month due to "serious safety deficiencies observed in respect of aircraft, operational procedures and aircraft handling", according to a copy of the Dutch decision obtained by AFP.
German authorities followed suit shortly after, telling the company in a fax obtained by AFP that all granted permissions had been "revoked with immediate effect due to severe safety concerns". It did not say how long the ban would be in effect.
A spokeswoman for the German civil aviation authority said the decision had been made "because of information furnished by other European authorities". She declined to reveal the precise reasons for the decision.
Onur Air`s Bagana said: "The fact that The Netherlands and Germany adopted the same attitude within two hours of each other gives us the impression that this was a planned act."
He denied charges that his company`s fleet of 28 aircraft were untrustworthy.
"Onur Air is a safe airline. As is the case with every airline, it is under 24-hour scrutiny from Turkey aviation authorities," Bagana said.
Some 40,000 passengers will be affected by the Dutch and German decisions until the end of the week, he added.
A company spokesman earlier raised the possibility that the bans were aimed at snatching up Onur Air`s share in the market.
"It is a chauvinistic approach ... We believe the bans are motivated by political and commercial interests," Rauf Gerz told AFP, adding that soon after the ban, a Dutch airline, Martinair, said it would shuttle between 1,500 and 2,000 of the Onur Air passagers back to the Netherlands this weekend.
"We have to search for some other reason than safety behind the ban. They (Dutch authorities) are trying to eliminate us from the market," Gerz said.
The Turkish government also accused Dutch and German authorities of failing to give a satisfactory explanation for their action, which it said was undertaken unilaterally against international practices.
A statement by the transport ministry said that "despite a decision to hold a meeting between Turkish and Dutch aviation authorities, the measure was put into practice unilaterally without waiting for the meeting."
It ruled out any "technical deficiencies" that would prevent Onur Air from flying.
Onur Air, founded in 1992 and which currently employs 879 people, makes 300 weekly flights from Turkey to Belgium, Austria, Germany and Spain and some 75 to the Netherlands.
Germany and the Netherlands are both home to sizeable communities of Turkish immigrant workers, and several million tourists from the two countries travel to Turkey each summer for holidays.
05/13/2005 20:24 GMT