ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The European Union has extended its ban on Iraqi Airways flights until at least November, citing ongoing safety concerns, an advisor to Iraq’s prime minister said on Wednesday, as the country continues to fall short of international aviation standards. “Due to the incomplete procedures for fulfilling the conditions of safety guidelines and international civil aviation standards, the European Union has postponed lifting the sanctions on Iraqi Airways,” Nasser al-Asadi, aviation advisor to Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, told Rudaw. Asadi added that if the required procedures are not completed by November, the sanctions could be extended again until June 2026. “But we have intensified our efforts to fulfill all conditions and procedures this year,” he said. Iraqi Airways, one of the oldest airlines in the Middle East, has been banned from operating in EU airspace since 2015 due to repeated safety violations. Along with Fly Baghdad, it remains on the EU’s list of air carriers prohibited from entering the bloc, with limited exceptions. “We cannot travel directly to Europe through Iraqi Airways, and this has had a great impact on Iraq, so resolving this issue is important and necessary,” Asadi stressed. Baghdad has been working to have the sanctions lifted. In late May, Sudani met with representatives from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to push for the ban’s removal. At the time, the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority reported that 71 percent of a corrective action plan had been implemented. Karwan Yarwais, an Iraqi parliament lawmaker, told Rudaw on Wednesday that mismanagement and corruption have undermined the effort. He said that they have warned the Iraqi premier multiple times before that mismanagement, corruption, and various contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered under the pretext of removing European sanctions. “The extension of sanctions by the European Union will affect Iraq's reputation,” Yarwais warned. Iraqi Airways has a poor reputation and has been stained by scandals in the past. In 2020, the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority suspended a pilot after he allowed a female model to enter the cockpit mid-flight. In July 2018, two Iraqi pilots got into a physical fight over dinner while flying a Boeing 737 with 160 passengers on board. In August 2023, Iraqi Airways had to apologize after a bear escaped from a crate in the cargo hold, delaying a flight from Dubai to Baghdad.
