Russian carriers are poised to discontinue the majority of their European flights after a number of European Union member states closed their airspace to all Russian registered aircraft in response to the war in Ukraine, with most other members expected to follow suit in the coming days. Slovenia is the first from the former Yugoslavia to do so. "The government made a decision to ban aircraft registered in the Russian Federation and operators with headquarters in the Russian Federation from flying in the airspace of the Republic of Slovenia", a statement from the Slovenian government said. Ljubljana is served by four weekly Aeroflot flights from Moscow, which have now been suspended.
The Russian national carrier also maintains daily flights from Moscow to Zagreb, and a one weekly service from St Petersburg. Its subsidiary, Rossiya Airlines, also operates a one weekly service from Russia’s second largest city, while Nordwind Airlines maintains two weekly rotations from Moscow. This morning’s Aeroflot flight from the Russian capital to Zagreb is taking over an hour longer than usual as the airline tries to navigate airspace bans. Serbia, which sees daily Aeroflot and one weekly Nordwind Airlines flights from Moscow to Belgrade, as well as a one weekly rotation from St Petersburg by both the Russian flag carrier and Nordwind, has ruled out the introduction of sanctions, however, Russian registered aircraft may soon be unable to reach the country due airspace bans having been imposed by Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria, with Germany announcing it will soon follow. Nordwind Airlines also maintains a two weekly service from Moscow to Skopje, which may also be unable to move forward as the situation evolves.
Russia has seemingly reciprocated, with several EU carriers being refused approval to fly over Russian territory, disrupting a number of services from Western Europe to Far East Asia. Some European airlines, such as Lufthansa, have voluntarily suspended operations to and over Russia.
As a result of the bans, Air Serbia could become one of the few European carriers able to operate into Russia. The airline currently maintains eight weekly flights to Moscow and two weekly to Saint Petersburg. During the summer season, the carrier also runs operations to Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don, while it plans to inaugurate services to Sochi from June. At this week’s Connect Route Development Forum, which took place in Tampere in Finland, Kazan Airport officials held talks with Air Serbia over potential operations from Belgrade. Representatives from Kazan Airport were the only ones from Russia present at the event, with talks taking place prior to military action in Ukraine.
Another loss Ljubljana can't afford.
ReplyDeleteAnd it hasn't been the only one this year..
DeleteThe list getting longer and longer. Iberia, Windrose, Nordwind, Rossiya and Aeroflot. Disaster. And they are talking about recovery.
DeleteWhat do you mean Iberia? As far as I know they ara coming back this summer, or am I wrong.
DeleteThey aren't because they have some problems inside iberia. I would say that they "don't" have enough airplanes to fly to all destinations and it's their fault if they want to leave profit on this route.
DeleteJU to SVO this morning went through Poland and then into Latvia to Moscow. Lufthansa, KLM and Austrian Airlines have all suspended flights.
ReplyDeleteJU could potentially profit greatly from this.
DeleteNot so sure that JU will keep the service to SVO if all European carriers suspend the flights.
DeleteIf there is no ban on foreign carriers to fly through European airspace to reach Russia, then it will continue to fly. At this point there is no such ban.
DeleteFor some reason yesterday they flew over Hungary, Austria, Germany then the Baltic sea over Latvia and arrived to SVO after 4 hours 10 minutes of flying. On the other hand the flight to SPB went normally over Hungary into Poland and up North. I don't understand why did the Moscow flight make such a detour?
DeleteIt is possible that at the time they were uncertain whether these measures would apply to European airlines or just Russian ones.
DeleteI've read somewhere that Belarus & Ukraine airspace have both been completely closed off due to an ongoing military conflict. Maybe that's why?
DeleteAnon 09.18
DeleteMind you, that same flight on the way back went via Poland.
I wonder if Air Serbia will respond by increasing capacity. I see their flight to Moscow this morning is operating normally through Polish airspace so these measures don't affect them.
ReplyDeleteAnd they chose to send A319...
DeleteWhat else can they send? A330 is en route from New York.
DeleteA320?
DeleteI see Aeroflot upgraded today's flight from A321 to A333. I guess many passengers were rerouted via BEG.
DeleteNo, A330 was scheduled weeks ago
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2022/02/five-airlines-to-deploy-wide-body-jets.html
Expected move that would bring more passengers primarily to the likes of TK,EK,QR,EY.
ReplyDeleteLet's see for how long though - EU countries are already discussing banning entry to RU passport holders.
Would be interesting to see how AirMontenegro reacts to it all. It is afterall the national carrier of a non-EU country who relies on Russian tourists a lot during the summer season.
There is a ban on flights from Russia to Montenegro for 2 years now. There have been no flights from Russia to Montenegro during this time. That's why JU profited greatly last summer as people had to transfer.
DeletePlus MNE introduced sanctions on Russia so they are definitely not going to be on Russia's friends list.
DeleteIronically any cancellation can hurt LJU airport's recovery quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteLetovi i preleti Rusije nisu vise bezbedni. U slucaju bilo kakvog ozbiljnijeg kvara, ruski mehanicari verovatno nece biti u mogucnosti da uspesno servisiraju avion, jer na lageru mozda nece imati rezervne delove (npr. trgovina Airbus rezervnim delovima do daljnjeg zabranjena).
ReplyDeletewell done! i think next step will be closing EU airspace for all Russian aircrafts and banning Russian passport holders.
ReplyDeleteagreed!
DeleteHear hear!!
Deleteclosed!
DeleteGermany has said it will soon block Russian airlines. When that happens I don't see a way Aeroflot can continue flying to ex-Yu cities.
ReplyDeleteWrong decision but clear with Jansa. Slovenia should step out of NATO and become neutral like Austria and Switzerland. Every sausage has two ends, so as every conflicts has several truths and this conflict is in no way like it is shown in the western propaganda press. Europeans must immediately more emancipate fm the US again, as not Putin is the worlds biggest problem, but the US and its stingy arms, pharma, energy and digital mafia.
ReplyDeleteMany smaller countries need to realize that we live in a multipolar world so it is not wise to exclusively side with one country. Serbia was very smart. Belgrade made one announcement that made the US, Russia and Ukraine happy. Since then they were extremely quiet waiting for the storm to pass.
Delete+ 1
DeleteSure is a smart move when they are not your civilians who are a collateral damage. Both Austria and Swiss are taking sanctions agains Russia, though. Even, Ireland which is not part of NATO, has closed this morning its airspace to Russian carriers. (https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0226/1283234-irish-airspace/?fbclid=IwAR2JZgfgE0nAPVdlb_AqIC-K8YePx56nXc7lwsU8ekSXOsK35DQBGkGrMs0).
DeleteOf course Ireland has done so when the UK closed it before them. Dublin has absolutely nothing to lose from that. Russian airlines have no need to overfly Ireland and SU has been operating just one weekly flight to DUB. It's mostly PR than anything else.
DeleteNot to go off topic but Dublin should rather ask London why are they so vehemently defending Kiev while still occupying a part of Ireland... and Spain.
@ Nemjee; I agree that closing the Irish airspace has very little impact on Russian carriers but it's sending them (Russian) a message that things are not done at the gun point.
DeleteAs for your second point, London has never ruled out the option of a referendum (as they allowed Scotland to have one already) for the unification of Ireland if this is people's will but the political parties in Ireland, besides Sinn Féin (SF), do not support it at the moment.
Of course London has offered the option of the referendum since they know it won't happen. On the other hand they have been trying to sabotage every referendum in Scotland since they know what the outcome might be there.
DeleteEither way, starting from today at 14.00 Germany is closing its air space to Russia.
Does this justify Russia for what it's doing to the Ukrainian people?
Delete@ Anonymous 14:54
DeleteIt doesn't and the blind denial in some of the comments who are supporting Putin and his cronies (not Russia but Putin) who just threatened the world with nuclear war is beyond pathetic.
BTW, the EU just closed their airspace to Russia so no planes will be able to fly to Serbia either. Will be interesting to see is Serbia can still maintain this east/west balancing act and if the EU countries which surround Serbia will allow flights over their airspace to Russia.
I hope the Ukrainian people can continue to hold out. A Ukrainian victory over Russia will be a victory for world peace. China is definitely seeing how any attempt on Taiwan will play out for them and we are also most likely seeing the end of Putin which will give the Chinese further pause.
I'm afraid this might also negatively impact JU plans for BEGPEK...
ReplyDeleteWhy? Russia won't ban Air Serbia from overflying its territory.
DeleteSerbia will not stop flying to Russia.
ReplyDeleteTried to prove my point with a few slovenian about how the decision greatly impacts us - Slovenians more than Russians. I was unsuccessful and called pro-russian. When we can't agree on that, do we really expect Slovenia to open new airline? On the other hand if JU plays this semi decent, they could/should be covering the whole EU from Russia. Let's just hope they don't f it up
ReplyDeleteGood!
ReplyDeleteLets hope the rest of the Ex Yu countries follow.
This is literally the only site I respect. Without any emotions or taking sides just reporting on stuff that affect aviation in ex-Yu.
ReplyDeleteThe EU has been a confused mess when it comes to Russia which shows their utter weakness.
ReplyDelete1. EU announces total ban on Russian planes yet this morning SU is flying to the EU and I even noticed Finnair is flying to SVO normally. Only a few eastern countries from the EU closed their air space which is smart play by the West. Why should Germany or France worsen their relationship with Russia when they can get Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Poland ... to do it for them.
2. EU announced total ban of Russia from SWIFT. Then they come up and say all Russian banks will be banned. Then they come out and say that only certain banks will be banned. Then they come out and say that this ban will not cover gas purchases. lol
3. Meanwhile the US forced Germany to block Nord Stream while Blinken said the other day that despite US sanctions, they will keep on buying Russian oil and gas. USA announced ban on Russian flights yet CUN-SVO flew straight through the USA today. Why? Because USA realizes that their airlines need to overfly Siberia. lol
Russian army is entering Kharkov and Kiev is not far behind. This whole situation will be over in two weeks and it will be business as usual.
Slovenia unnecessarily rushed with this decision which might have long term impact on their relationship with Moscow
+100
DeleteAdd to that recent announcement by Belgium in which they support sanctions against Russia but are pleading that their dimonds export be exempt!! Hahaha because we all know Belgium is a diamond export giant and there are a lot of rich folks in Russia who want to buy them. The level of hypocrisy is astounding from the "democratic" western nations.
DeleteActually Belgium was successful because diamonds and luxury goods are not part of the sanctions. So Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior ... can still go to Russia to be sold. lol
DeleteWell, it is actually import of the rocks that concerns Belgium the most. Russia is the world biggest producer of the diamants. They are sold to Belgium, being cut and polished there and then exported and the rocks ready to be used for jewelry.
DeleteToday will probably be the last day of EU-Russia flights. Let's see what happens with JU.
ReplyDeleteI believe TK will continue flying so JU can hope there will be couple of channels opened. If it was just about JU, I don't think it could be possible.
DeleteThis time around TK can't profit that much. They are in a relatively bad geographical position. Seems like Moscow has limited to the maximum flying over southern Russia and the Caucasus. Flights from Moscow to Cyprus, Egypt, Dubai ... are all heading east over Kazakhstan then over the Caspian Sea and then either west over Turkey or they continue south.
DeleteSo for TK's IST-MOW flights they have to make a larger detour either way they go.
Due their quite large hub, and location just below Russia, they will for sure profit the most from this.
DeleteBoth sides are to be blamed for this war. Ukraine 8years shelling of Dumbas region, did give Russian moral grounds to go in and protect that region. If this would be it, non of the member states would react.
ReplyDeleteBut it did not give them the right to invade the whole contry.
Now NATO is mobilizing (rapid reaction force), Germany has shifted from neutral to active participante and will be shipping anti-tank and anti-aircraft wapons to Ukraine. EU is moving it's aircraft to Poland. UNGA emergency special session is called, where veto powers are removed.
This can get a lot bigger .
Why not stay on the topic of aviation?
DeleteBecause today's topic is all about politics. You can't discuss Slovenia using politics to block SU wihout speaking of the reason for their decision.
DeleteFor those speaking German, watch on utube Ukrainian Agony. It s a movie by a German war-reporter
DeleteIf I get it right, the private jet of some Russian oligarch registered at Malta can land at LJU but Aeroflot carrying folks like you and me is banned?
ReplyDeleteNo because the EU linked it to ownership so if he owns a company that is registered in Malta it is banned.
DeleteMoney talks.. Always.
DeleteDuring corona pandemic my buddy who flies for a private middle east operator said that in the middle of the lockdowns, he flew along with to additional jets from a city in middle east to Marocco some elites on a private hunting trip. No restrictions whatsoever.
OK, he'll call Air Pink and get to Ljubljana
DeleteOnly until we get a blank ban on Russian nationals entering the EU, which is likely to happen if this situation continues.
DeleteJu da spremi A330 za 2X dnevno ka Moskvi,kada nije na putu za JFK.
ReplyDelete+ 1000
DeleteМогу они да спреме А330 за 5 летова на дан али ништа им не значи ако им Русија не одобри више од 8 недељних летова.
DeleteИначе, Аустрија је затворила свој простор за руске авионе. Ово сада може бити проблем за њих јер би правили велики круг за летове ка Балкану.
Rusiji je u interesu da imaju što više letova u suprotnom će izazvati još veći revolt i nezadovoljstvo građana. Jedini problem koji vidim je da EU zabrani ErSrbiji prelet iznad njihove teritorije za letove kojima je krajnja tačka Rusija.
DeleteВидећемо шта ће бити. Мислим да ће ЕУ државама много већи проблем бити када њихове авио-компаније које лете за Азију крену да нагомилавају губитке. Пре неки дан ВА лет из Лондон за Њу Делхи је поприлично кружио а лет је трајао нешто дуже од сат времена. Е сада замислите ако Луфтханса не буде могла да прелеће Русију на летовима ка Пекингу, Сеулу или Токију? Наравно, конкуренција из Персијског залива ће трљати руке.
DeleteЕво и Финска управо затвара свој ваздушни простор, и самим тим је направљен зид према Русији. Калињинград на Балтику је скроз изолован.
DeleteОво је задњи дан да Аерофлот лети ка Европи, вероватно ће Туркиш и Ер Србија остати једина веза са Москвом.
Folks, this is all way beyond civilian air traffic, stop being silly.
DeleteCroatia and Bosnia need to both ban Russian Aircraft from their airspace!
ReplyDeleteNo airline from Russia flies to Bosnia and no airline from Russia overflies Bosnia.
DeleteFor now. But they might if they need escape routes.
DeleteIt won't be able to reach Bosnia.
DeleteYou see how clever and competent leadership of Croatia Airlines - it took some time for them to prove being the best and wisest - no flights to Moscow and other Russian cities - no worries and no problems - and they are free to continue having their coffees and gossips in Buzin
ReplyDeleteall while calling BCG to sell them post-war strategy
DeleteInteresting how when the US invaded Iraq, all these NATO countries as well as neutral European countries did not impose a flight ban on US airlines. Nor did any countries in Asia impose bans on US or NATO airlines when the US and NATO invaded Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteTwo wrongs don't make a right.
DeleteFWIW, I live in the US and was against the Iraq invasion the same way I am against the Ukraine invasion, the same way I was against NATO bombing Serbia (for defending their territory.) The world is a fcked up place and we keep setting dangerous precedents.
Wow, imagine the potential for AS on this. Only European carrier allowed in Russia... they should boost their SVO slots, pick up all PAX to Europe and Asia and America... of course share profit wiht Russia but imagine possibilities.. China will also profit and MEB airlines... and also for the pax to SVO it will be gigantic ask. Wow... 7 flights daily wouldnt have been enough.
ReplyDeleteLast time I checked, Serbia was surrounded by EU countries, what if they ban flight to Russia crossing their airspace. Putin pucked up. He is done!!
DeleteI dont comment on politics but have to say that Slovenian politician Jansha is an idiot.
ReplyDeleteLjubljana needs every flight it can get.
The same for Croatia and every other ex yugo country.
Connectivity is too important for the local economies.
Why should we suffer from a war that is not ours?
Aeroflot will not be able to fly to LJU either way. With or without Slovenia ban.
Deletenoone will be able to fly to Russia - not even Airserbia. EU will ban all flights to and from russia - also overflying.
ReplyDelete^ That will result in the biggest airspace closure in the history of aviation.
DeleteIt could last for years. Many airlines will get in big trouble or even go bust.
Von der Leyen said EU is closing the sky for "Russian-owned, Russian-registered and Russian-controlled aircraft", not all flights to/from Russia.
DeleteDo the re-directed flights now flying over Serbia have to pay flyover fees? If so, is this a potentially lucrative opportunity for Serbia to make money now from those flights?
ReplyDeleteIt might be a good idea to dry-lease another big airplane for JU to fly to Russia. Truth be told, the EU needs at least one country to facilitate flights to Russia - both for their own nationals to come home as well as for low-key meetings behind the scene.
BTW - agree with those who draw parallels to the hypocrisy of the EU on this issue.
Very good and bold position from Slovenia. The first Yugoslav republic to take this anti Russian stance. Who cares about some weekly flights to Russia? Besides both Slovenia and Hrvatska were never really Russian orientated countries but rather entirely Western. No loss here.
ReplyDeleteFor some the only loss for LJU would be FRA... SVO is not an important route? Oh come on..
Delete