Costs will rise: how much will it cost airlines to bypass Belarus

To date, the German airline Lufthansa, the Latvian airBaltic, the Hungarian Wizz Air, the Polish LOT, the Dutch KLM, the Swedish SAS, the Finnish Finnair, the Austrian Austrian Airlines and the French Air France, the Spanish Iberia and the Japanese All Nippon Airways have already announced their cancellation of flights over Belarus.

“The volume of transit, non-stop flights through Belarus, is very high.

From Japan, Central Asia.

To the Balkans, to Europe, "Sergei Kovalev, president of the Federal Trade Union of Aviation Dispatchers of Russia, explained to RT. 

According to him, first of all, Belarus itself will suffer losses from the departure of foreign air carriers from its airspace.

“The country will lose fees for air traffic management - air traffic control.

It costs at least $ 150 per 100 km.

Let's say the plane has passed 400 km over Belarus - the fee is $ 600.

And the flights there were quite intense, ”says Kovalev.

The head of the air transportation department of the AsstrA group of companies, Anton Nowyouv, also agrees with Kovalev that, first of all, Belarus will bear the losses.

“This is a collapse for the image of Belarus, and it will be quite difficult in the future to convince airlines to work with this state, as it was before.

At the same time, removing Belavia from the blacklists will also be a daunting task.

All this is aggravated by the fact that Belarus, like the rest of the world, is going through a coronavirus crisis.

Most likely, the revenues of civil aviation in the country will fall by at least 80%, or even 90%, ”says Anton Nowyov.

However, according to experts, airlines that have refused to fly over Belarus will also incur losses, despite attempts to minimize the consumption of time and fuel and build routes through the nearest countries - Poland, Russia, Ukraine or the Baltic states.

But even in this case, a detour bypassing Belarus - about 600 km - will require about an hour of flight time.

“An hour of flight is about three tons of aviation kerosene,” notes Sergei Kovalev.

With an average cost per ton of $ 470, only additional fuel will cost $ 1410.

An extra 600 km of dispatch support - another $ 900.

The flight time of the pilot-in-command in different airlines may differ significantly, but the average for Europe is $ 300.

Of course, additional time will be paid for other crew members: co-pilot, flight attendants.

Plus, the cost of an hour includes depreciation, navigation services and many more components.  

According to a specialist of one of the airlines, for narrow-body aircraft such as Airbus A319-320 with a capacity of up to 160 passengers, an extra hour of flight will cost $ 8-10 thousand. And for wide-body aircraft, like the Boeing 777 with 300-500 seats, even more.

“In theory, these additional costs could lead to higher ticket prices.

For flights lasting 3 hours before the route change, an extra hour will add to the fare.

“I don’t think airlines will pass these additional costs onto passengers.

That is, they will not announce the change in value.

After all, passengers may refuse to fly at the new prices.

And you can imperceptibly lay in the tariff, especially since the tariff is floating.

On neighboring seats, the cost of tickets sometimes differs twice, ”commented Sergei Kovalev.

In his opinion, airlines view the situation as temporary.

Therefore, they will not rush to increase prices.

“I am more than sure that soon all airlines will return to the old route.

Regardless of changes in the political situation.

The economy is more important to airlines, ”Kovalev said. 

Let us remind you that on May 23, an airplane of the Irish airline Ryanair made an emergency landing at the Minsk airport, which was following a flight from Athens to Vilnius.

As stated by the Belarusian authorities, they had information that an explosive device was planted on board.

During the search after landing, no explosives were found.

At the same time, after landing, one of the founders of the NEXTA Telegram channel recognized as extremist in Belarus, Roman Protasevich, was detained.

He was wanted in the case of "organizing mass riots and group actions that grossly violate public order" and on the list of individuals involved in terrorism.

Protasevich faces up to 15 years in prison.

The incident with the landing of the aircraft in the European Union was called a violation of international norms. On May 24, the final statement of the EU summit was circulated for this reason. The leaders of the 27 countries of the union instructed the EU Council to take the necessary measures to ban flights of Belarusian airlines over the territory of the EU, and also recommended that European air carriers refuse to fly in the airspace of Belarus.