Russian airline Aeroflot announced on Saturday that it was canceling all of its international flights from March 8.
Russian airline Aeroflot announced on Saturday it was suspending its international flights from March 8, when Moscow was hit hard by Western sanctions over Ukraine. The decision, which will come into force at midnight (21:00 Moscow time on Monday), is due to new “circumstances that impede the operation of flights,” the company said in a statement, adding that domestic routes and connections with Belarus will be preserved.
The gendarme of the Russian aviation Rosaviatsiya, for its part, indicated that he “recommended” Russian companies operating rental aircraft registered outside the country to stop flying abroad in order to avoid the seizure of the devices. “This recommendation is a consequence of the very high risk of arrest or confiscation of aircraft from Russian companies abroad,” he added. Flights to non-CIS countries should stop at 22:00 (Paris time) on Saturday, and from abroad on Monday at the same time, the Federal Air Transport Agency clarifies.
Hard punishments
The West imposed tough sanctions on air travel, closing their seats to Russian aircraft and halting the supply of spare parts, notably to Boeing and Airbus, following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Russian companies are at risk of recalling some of their aircraft: three-quarters of them belong not to companies, but to lessors, according to the Aviation Week database. If a quarter of these tenants are Russians, then almost half are Europeans.
The sanctions perimeter “allows all aircraft owned by EU owners to enter the EU,” a European official pointed out earlier in the week, saying he had “contacted several leasing companies in Ireland,” where many of them are based, on the matter. The Russian company S7, the second in the country, announced on Friday that it was halting all flights abroad.