Russian companies can no longer fly to Europe
The first nation to ban Russian carriers from its skies was England, followed a few hours later [...]
The first nation to ban Russian carriers from its skies was England, followed a few hours later by Poland.
In this article:
Putin's government immediately responded by placing a flyover ban on British companies.
These decisions caused problems for flights and created imaginative routes. For example, this Aeroflot flight, which took off from Moscow and headed to Budapest, was forced to transit over Latvia, then head southwest to Germany and from there veer, flying over Germany, Austria and Slovakia to finally arrive in Hungary.
Now, however, all European Union states have made the same decision, so with immediate effect all Russian carriers are prevented from flying over European skies.
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Above is an Aeroflot plane at Milan Malpensa on the day the war in Ukraine began, one of the last flights to Moscow that departed from Italy.
The bridging role here is likely to be taken by Turkish Airlines, even though the Turkish government has repeatedly condemned Russia's actions in recent days. With the ban on Russian carriers from entering European skies and Putin's likely response, infatt, the Turkish carrier remains the only one able to offer connections between Russia and Europe, via its stopover in Istanbul.
Economic harm to all carriers
It is definitely a detriment to Russia and to Aeroflot: to fly over airspace you have to pay, and given Russia's strategic position for flights to the east, the ban, currently imposed only on British carriers (it is foreseeable that it will be extended to all European airlines), will not make the country millions. Money that is usually turned over almost entirely to the state carrier Aeroflot.
But it is not only a harm to Russia, it is also a harm to all companies that will have to design routes that avoid Russian airspace, in addition to other hot spots on the planet where carriers avoid flying.
For example, Syria and Afghanistan for political instability or Belarus after a plane was landed only to have an opponent of the Minsk government arrested.
In conclusion
While westbound travel should not be impacted, there are European carriers that will have to redesign the routes of all flights to the east. Finnair, for example, will be forced to greatly lengthen all its flights because the route from Helsinki to the east involves precisely flying over Russia. Same for the whole world of cargo flying(goes) over Putin's nation from China to northern Europe.
