Mozambique Airlines (LAM) has obtained “highly satisfactory” results from the latest IATA (International Air Transport Association) Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), according to a LAM press release received by AIM on Monday.The audit was held from 6-10 June. According to sources in the audit, quoted by the release, “the assessment held shows clearly that LAM is a company which in its operations complies with the technical and operational requirements established in the civil aviation industry. It is thus a safe company that its clients can trust”.IOSA is the internationally accepted and recognised audit system for civil aviation. 370 air companies, accounting for 93 per cent of world air traffic have IOSA certification.The audit looks at an airline’s business organisation and management system, flight operations, operational control, aircraft engineering and maintenance, cabin operations, ground assistance, cargo operations and operational safety.This is LAM’s third consecutive IOSA certificate. It was first certified in 2008, then again in 2009, and now in 2011.Despite this result, LAM is still not allowed to operate within the airspace of the European Union. Perversely, the European Commission paid no attention to the IOSA certification, or to LAM’s impressive safety record, when it decided in April to ban all Mozambican air companies from flying to Europe.In a press statement, the Commission announced that “all air carriers certified in Mozambique have been banned from flying into the EU ... because of significant safety deficiencies requiring decisive action”.But these “safety deficiencies” were at the level, not of the air companies, but of the regulator, the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM). Despite the ban, LAM continues to fly to Europe, because its twice weekly flights from Maputo to Lisbon are operated under a “wet lease” agreement with a Portuguese ompany, EuroAtlantic Airways, which is not covered by the ban.