sanctions against Russia
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What effects the airspace closures are likely to have
Sun 02/27/22 | 4:36 p.m. | Of
Germany and other EU countries ban Russian planes from overflight. Russia is responding with appropriate countermeasures. Not only passengers are likely to be affected, the movement of goods will also be disrupted. By Oliver Noffke
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Canceled flights, longer flight times, restrictions on the movement of goods: the airspace closures of EU countries and Russia for airlines on the other side will have concrete effects in the region.
“We will also notice that,” said BER press spokesman Hannes Stefan Hönemann when asked by rbb|24. “At the moment, one or two flights per day to Russia were planned. This is still limited due to the pandemic, but these connections are now completely eliminated.”
Since 3 p.m. on Sunday, Russian aircraft have not been allowed in the airspace over the Federal Republic. Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) decided that, his ministry announced.
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Freight traffic also affected
The airspace closures will also affect cargo traffic. At BER, so-called “belly freight” would be processed, said Hönemann. Hardly any pure cargo aircraft would be used. Instead, freight comes to BER primarily in the bellies of passenger aircraft.
Lufthansa Cargo handles its long-haul flights via Munich or Frankfurt am Main airports and DHL from Leipzig; however, delays on Asian connections will be felt nationwide. In particular, medicines and other medical products are imported by plane.
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Significantly longer flight times to Asia in the future
It is not the first time that Russia under Putin has closed its airspace to European aircraft. In the fall of 2007, the country banned Lufthansa’s cargo division from overflights. Only when the company agreed to make stopovers to Asia in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk instead of Kazakhstan did Russia lift the ban. At the time, some members of the Bundestag accused Putin’s government of extortion.
The fact that European airlines will have to adapt to flying around Russia as far as possible in the future will lead to significantly longer flight times to many Asian countries – and thus to higher costs.
Poland was the first EU country to ban Russia from using its airspace on Thursday, followed by other Eastern European countries. Moscow responded by banning overflights. At least three German planes returned to their airports of origin on their way to Asia on Saturday [tagesschau.de].
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Ukrainian airlines continue to fly
However, the Russian airlines are likely to be hit hardest by the bans. As a result of the pandemic, they lost a large part of their income, as did their global competitors. In previous years there had been a series of sometimes dramatic airline bankruptcies in Russia. Now the remaining ones are almost completely cut off from the lucrative European business.
Flights to Ukraine are still planned. For example to Kyiv or Odessa, both cities are currently partly under Russian fire. At BER, efforts are being made to support all these flights as best as possible, says Hönemann. “Whether the flights will be carried out, however, is a decision made by the airlines and the authorities,” he says.
Many European airlines are currently avoiding Ukrainian airspace, according to the website’s real-time data flightradar24.com demonstrate. In July 2014, a Malaysia Airlines passenger plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine. 298 people died. The investigative reporters from the Bellingcat network were later able to prove that a Russian military missile system had been used [bellingcat.com, Informationen in englischer Sprache]. Among other things, satellite images showed how the gun was taken to eastern Ukraine before it was launched and then returned to Russia.
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