Europe nations clip Russia’s wings with new airspace curbs

Over the previous few years, the usage of airspace has emerged as an important device by international locations to affirm their stances in geopolitical conflicts. In 2019, Pakistan closed its airspace to India after the Balakot air strikes. Last yr, European nations curbed flights from Belarus after it compelled a aircraft to land in order to arrest a dissenting journalist.

Now, jurisdictions opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have began blockading their airspace to plane registered or operated by Russians.

Other than Ukraine, which has its airspace closed for Russia since 2015, 29 international locations have issued NOTAMs (Notice to Air Missions) disallowing use of their airspace to Russian planes. Notably, in a number of of those instances, Russia has reciprocated with prohibitions too.

As per data from Flightradar24, the UK, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Austria, the Netherlands, Malta, Denmark, Canada, Luxembourg, Croatia, Albania, France, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Belgium and Sweden have closed their airspace for Russia. This means flights being operated by Russian airways or Russia-registered personal jets must undertake significantly prolonged detours to fly in another country.

For instance, Aeroflot’s Belgrade-Moscow flight, which took 2 hours 35 minutes on Friday, noticed its flight time attain 5 hours 45 minutes on Sunday.