Airspace of the Russian Federation: Restrictions on Use

Under the rapidly changing conditions for air transportation capabilities, Vipservice tries to keep its customers and partners up to date with the actual information.

So, at the moment, the situation is as follows: since a number of foreign states unilaterally decided to stop flights by the Russian airlines, our country was forced to introduce the retaliatory “mirror measures”. Their essence is expressed through a full ban on the use of airspace over Russia for the civil aircraft from the United States, Great Britain, Canada and a number of European states.

“Of course, we were not interested in introducing any restrictions for the foreign carriers. But the aviation authorities’ decisions of a number of foreign states left us no choice, and in accordance with all international standards, “mirror” measures were taken,” said Vitaly Savelyev, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation. “Under the current restrictions, we, together with the colleagues from other departments, are taking all necessary measures aimed at returning the Russian citizens from abroad, as well as maintaining mobility and increasing the availability of air travel, including in the domestic Russian traffic.”

Let us briefly explain how such measures look in practice. Hundreds of the foreign flights from Europe, Great Britain, Canada and the United States to the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East passed through Russian airspace every day (for example, through the Trans-Siberian route). The flight distance from London to Tokyo via Russia along such a corridor (the shortest air route between Europe and Southeast Asia) is 9,500 km, and using an alternative route - 11,200 km. Thus, all replacement options significantly increase the flight time - by almost 2 hours. This entails an increase in the cost of transportation, primarily due to an increase in the amount of fuel used.

The estimated additional costs for carriers in 19 countries (USA, Canada, UK, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Finland, France, Switzerland, Sweden) subject to the restrictions for use of the airspace of the Russian Federation amount to more than 37.5 million US dollars weekly. As a consequence, it entails an increase in the prices of tickets and transportation of goods, which inevitably falls on passengers and shippers.