European flights to Russia canceled: Moscow advances "technical" reasons
Air France flights to Moscow have not been able to take off since Wednesday, May 26.
REUTERS - Regis Duvignau
Text by: RFI Follow
5 mins
After the rerouting of the Ryanair flight and the European sanctions against Belarus, several commercial flights between European countries and Russia were canceled.
The Kremlin assures that these cancellations are linked solely to technical reasons.
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Not a single flight from Air France has been able to take off in the direction of Moscow since Wednesday. The Austrian company Austrian Airlines also had to give up an air link between Vienna and the Russian capital. Each time, it was the Russian authorities who refused an itinerary to bypass Belarus.
In the Russian press, this Friday morning, several experts are wondering about the significance of these flight cancellations, and whether this is not for Moscow a way to
support the Belarusian regime,
reports our correspondent in Moscow,
Daniel Vallot
. The statements this Friday of Maria Zakharova seem to confirm this version, the head of Russian diplomacy criticizing the "
irresponsible behavior
" of the European Union which would endanger according to her "
the safety of passengers
" by recommending at the beginning of the week the bypassing of Belarusian airspace.
Asked about the subject, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was for his part much less virulent, assuring that these repeated cancellations were only due to "
technical questions
".
In the meantime, Air France passengers stranded in Paris were offered a subsequent flight on the company Aeroflot, or reimbursement for their trip.
The EU recommended avoiding Belarusian airspace to punish the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, accused of diverting a Ryanair flight to Minsk to arrest journalist and dissident Roman Protassevich who was on board.
The EU has also announced the closure of its airspace to aircraft from Belarus, in unison with the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
Air France complied by announcing to suspend "
until further notice
" the passage of its planes over the country.
Its Dutch sister company KLM does the same, like many other European companies, like Lufthansa, Finnair or SAS, or Asian, like Singapore Airlines and ANA (Japan).
Uncertainties, but a limited impact for companies
In any case, these flight cancellations create uncertainty for passenger traffic.
And for companies, these are additional costs.
In order to be able to continue operating certain flights, these companies must build alternative routes to those which pass through Belarusian airspace initially planned and authorized.
For Didier Bréchemier, partner at Roland Berger, in charge of transport, this crisis risks destroying the network of certain airlines: “
All the companies that have to go through Belarus, or they must avoid the area and therefore consume additional flight time. as well as an additional cost, ie not to make this destination.
This destroys the network of airlines that travel from northern Europe to southern Europe, low-cost companies like Ryanair or Easyjet.
"
But Didier Bréchemier prefers to qualify the impact that this will have on companies since the number of flights is reduced following the Covid-19 crisis.
Didier Bréchemier on canceled flights to Russia: "the impact would have been greater in 2019"
Agnieszka Kumor
► See also: Belarus: the parents of the arrested journalist call on the international community for help
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