ISTANBUL - Dutch and Turkish aviation experts began a second round of talks Wednesday on the four-nation ban imposed on Turkish budget airline Onur Air, which the company says has stranded tens of thousands of passengers and cost it millions of dollars.
The Dutch delegation arrived in Istanbul at 2:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) and was ushered into a meeting room at the Ataturk airport in Istanbul for the talks, an AFP correspondent said.
It was not immediately clear whether there would be a statement after the meeting.
The Turkish transport ministry earlier said German experts would also take part in the talks, but ministry spokesman Mehmet Akif Sam said the German delegation would not attend.
On May 12, The Netherlands banned all Onur Air flights for one month, citing safety concerns. The Dutch measure was also adopted by Germany, Switzerland and France, affecting some 40,000 passengers.
Turkish and Dutch experts held a first round of talks on Monday and Tuesday in Amsterdam while German and Turkish experts met Tuesday in Brunswick, western Germany.
Onur Air has denounced the ban as "unjust" and slammed it as a move intended to reduce its share of the European market, rejecting charges that it had failed to respect international norms in its aircraft maintenance.
Onur Air spokesman Rauf Gerz said that said the ban had cost the company several million euros.
Even if the bans were lifted tomorrow, he said, "the damage already has been done" to the airline, which he said had lost an important part of its market in the Netherlands and Germany to rival operators.
With sales of 450 million dollars (354.2 million euros) in 2004 and nearly 900 employees, Onur Air depends heavily on its charter market in those countries.
05/18/2005 13:04 GMT