The Aeroflot passenger plane was seen parked at Sheremetyevo Airport, outside Moscow, on Tuesday. Russia’s largest airline, Aeroflot, on Monday said it was suspending flights to New York, Washington, Miami and Los Angeles because Canada had closed its airspace to Russian planes.
Pavel Golovkin / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Pavel Golovkin / AP
The Aeroflot passenger plane was seen parked at Sheremetyevo Airport, outside Moscow, on Tuesday. Russia’s largest airline, Aeroflot, on Monday said it was suspending flights to New York, Washington, Miami and Los Angeles because Canada had closed its airspace to Russian planes.
Pavel Golovkin / AP
As of 9 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, Russian aircraft are prohibited from entering US airspace.
President Biden announced that he had ordered during his State of the Union address Tuesday night, along with the European Union and Canada, to ban Russian planes, part of a global effort to sanction Russia for its behavior. encroachment on Ukraine.
The Putin regime is expected to respond and ban US planes from entering Russian airspace. That could mean longer flights as jets are rerouted around closed airspace, but aviation industry experts say the Russians will likely feel the bigger impact.
According to a statement from the US Department of Transportation, the ban bans all passenger, cargo and charter flights on “all aircraft operated by persons who are citizens of Russia.”
Any pilot who violates the ban on entering U.S. airspace “may be intercepted, and their pilots and other members of their crews arrested and interviewed by real personnel.” law enforcement or security personnel, as appropriate.”
The airline that will be most immediately affected is Russia’s Aeroflot, which has flown to Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC, and has flown through US and Canadian airspace to destinations in the Caribbean. Flights to and from the United States have now been banned and Aeroflot will have to reroute flights to popular holiday destinations.
“So places like Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, Cancun in Mexico, those destinations are off-limits,” said Ian Petchenik of global flight tracking service FlightRadar24. “But the route there has become significantly longer for Russian airlines,” as they will have to fly through international airspace over the Atlantic.
An Aeroflot flight from Miami to Moscow on Sunday violated Canada’s ban on excessive Russian flights. Canadian air traffic control authorities told Reuters that Aeroflot had declared the flight a “humanitarian” mission.
The country’s aviation authority, Transport Canada, said on Twitter that it was investigating the airspace violation. “We will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action and other measures to prevent future violations,” the agency said.
In addition, Petchenik said Caribbean vacation destinations will be harder to get to.
Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines has suspended its codeshare agreement with Aeroflot.
Russia is expected to return the favor and close its airspace to US airlines, as it has done with airlines from Canada and the EU, but Petchenik says the impact will be similar. relatively small.
“That’s very few passenger flights. And the affected cargo flights will take longer in the air, but most of these flights are still operable,” he said.
There are currently no US airlines flying to any Russian cities, and flights over vast Russian airspace to Asia have been rerouted out of an abundance of caution. That adds up time and burns more fuel, which increases costs. As a result, United Airlines has suspended flights via Russia to New Delhi and Mumbai, India.
And about 300 cargo flights a month are affected, most going from the West Coast or Anchorage, Alaska, to destinations in Japan, South Korea, China and on to Hong Kong, but Petchenik said they can transfer. direct its flight out of Russian airspace.
“So you’re spending a little more time in the air, you’re burning a little more fuel,” but flights can continue to operate.
Aviation industry sources say if this had happened before the pandemic the impact would have been much larger. US airlines had at least 1,400 flights a week through Russian airspace in 2019, but the pandemic has drastically reduced international air travel.
European airlines are more affected, as many are no longer flying to the Russian cities they serve and are unable to operate shorter routes through Russian airspace to and from multiple destinations Asia.
For example, the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo, which used to fly over the Russian poles, now traveled a much longer distance over South Asia, Petchenik said. So a flight that used to take less than 10 hours now takes almost 13 hours.
“So you’re adding a significant amount of time and a significant amount of distance, which means burning a significant amount of fuel,” making the airline much more expensive, Petchenik said.
So while experts say the airspace ban is largely symbolic, economic sanctions are likely to cripple Russian airlines’ ability to operate fleets, as they It is nearly impossible to obtain the necessary parts and repairs to continue the operation of the aircraft.
Planemakers Boeing, Airbus and GE, which manufactures and services aircraft engines, all announced they would suspend spare parts, maintenance and technical support services to Russian airlines. .
“Not being able to access the services and spare parts and all the electronic supports that come with operating a modern aircraft, all of which will make Russia’s commercial aviation industry a loser,” says Petchenik. stopped working very quickly.”
