Russian airlines will be cut off from most of European airspace as more than 20 countries announced flight bans following the invasion of Ukraine.
EU officials expect a bloc-wide ban to be announced later on Sunday, after countries including France, Italy, Germany and Finland announced they would stop Russian airlines from using their airspace or landing at their airports. The UK announced its own similar restrictions on Friday.
“Our European skies are open skies. They’re open for those who connect people, not for those who seek to brutally aggress,” Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo said on Twitter.
The bans apply to all Russian airlines, including flag carrier Aeroflot.
The wave of restrictions came as the latest round of EU sanctions against Russia prompted Germany’s flag carrier Lufthansa and KLM to suspend flights to the country for the next seven days.
KLM said the decision had been made because the sanctions, which were announced late on Friday, prohibited sending any spare aircraft parts to Russia, even if they were intended for the airline’s own use.
“This means KLM can no longer guarantee that flights to Russia can return safely,” KLM said.
Air France has suspended flights to Russia and through Russian airspace until further notice. As a result, all flights to China, South Korea and Japan are temporarily suspended while the carrier considers alternative routes bypassing Russia.
The bans from European governments leave Russian airlines with dwindling options for flight paths into western Europe.
Tracking data from Flightradar24 showed an Aeroflot carrier took a significant detour over northern Europe and the Baltic Sea on a Saturday morning flight between Moscow and Budapest, adding 70 minutes to its journey. It made the trip before several Baltic states announced their decisions to seal off their airspace.
Moscow has responded with tit-for-tat flight bans for airlines from many countries, leaving European airlines rushing to reroute aircraft and facing longer journey times to many parts of Asia.
About 600 flights per day that take off or land in Europe would normally fly through Russian airspace, according to data from Cirium.
Many airlines would typically use Russian airspace when flying the “great circle route” over northern Russia and into parts of Asia, including China and Japan.
European airlines have different levels of exposure to Asia, which is still closed to many visitors because of coronavirus. At the extreme, Finnair has built its long-haul business model on routes east over Russia.
Finnair warned it faced “significant consequences” and the loss of many of its routes to Asia.
“For many of our North-East Asia flights, rerouting would mean considerably longer flight time, and operations would not be economically feasible,” the airline said on Sunday.
Virgin Atlantic has suspended a route that transported cargo between London and Shanghai, while British Airways confirmed it would reroute to avoid Russian airspace, leading to longer flight times and higher fuel costs.
Speaking before the rapid set of flight bans, one European airlines executive predicted bans from Russian airspace would be “catastrophic” for the industry.
However, the damage is so far mitigated by very weak demand for flights to Asia.
BA was not currently flying any services to China or Japan, while it would normally operate multiple flights a day, its chief executive Sean Doyle said on Friday, as he played down the impact of the bans.
Azerbaijan Air Navigation Services said it had opened up alternative air traffic routes for airlines looking to avoid Russian airspace without adding huge diversions to flights.
Additional reporting from Richard Milne in Oslo, Valentina Pop in Brussels, Jude Webber in Dublin, Nastassia Astrasheuskaya in Moscow, Joshua Oliver in London, Sarah White in Paris and Joe Miller in Frankfurt
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2022-02-27 13:22:55Z
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