This article is part of a directory: Aviation In Ukraine: What's The Latest?
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Late in the day yesterday, Russia got news that, among the many sanctions being imposed on the nation in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine, the UK was to ban Aeroflot from flying in its airspace.

That decision would directly impact flights to the UK, specifically an Aeroflot daily rotation from Moscow to Heathrow. However, the ban on overflying the UK’s airspace was less of a worry for Russia; after all, the British Isles aren’t exactly huge, and are fairly easy to circumnavigate if necessary.

It had been expected that other countries might ban the Russian flag carrier from their airports and airspace, but as yet, none have followed suit. Rather, it seems Russia itself will be first to react, as news has broken this morning that the nation plans to ban all UK flights from entering Russian airspace.

Aeroflot Airbus A330-243 VQ-BBF
 Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Simple Flying.
Of all Russian airlines, Aeroflot naturally has the largest number of Airbus and Boeing aircraft.

Sky News broke the story first, noting that Rosaviatsiya – Russia’s civil aviation authority - said that all flights by the UK carriers to Russia as well as transit flights are banned from Friday. In a statement, Rosaviatsiya said,

“From 11.00 Moscow time, a restriction was introduced on the use of the airspace of the Russian Federation for flights of aircraft owned, leased or operated by a person associated with the UK or registered in the UK, to points in the territory of the Russian Federation , including transit flights through the airspace of the Russian Federation.

“This measure was taken in accordance with the provisions of the Intergovernmental Air Services Agreement between Russia and the UK as a response to unfriendly decisions of the UK Aviation Authorities regarding the restriction on regular flights of aircraft owned, leased or operated by a person associated with Russia or registered in Russia.”

British Airways has responded by cancelling its flights to Moscow today, but says that the overall impact on long-haul flying will be limited. Luis Gallego, CEO of British Airways’ owner IAG commented,

"Following the UK government decision to ban Aeroflot from landing in the UK, we have taken the decision not use Russian airspace for overflights. We are avoiding Russian airspace for the time being. The impact for us is not huge because right now we are only flying to a small number of destinations in Asia and we can reroute our flights.”

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Passenger operations from the UK to Asia are still thin on the ground. Photo: British Airways

The tit-for-tat response from Russia could have been a major issue back in pre-COVID times. Many flights from the UK to Asia route over Russia as the most direct path. But, today, these flights are limited as most of Asia remains closed to visitors. Additionally, EASA had yesterday warned against civilian flights over Ukraine and into Russia and Belarus near the border, so many commercial flights had already been rerouted away from the region.

In a statement to Simple Flying, British Airways said,

"We have suspended our flights to Moscow and also the use of Russian airspace, following the confirmation of Russian government restrictions.

“We apologise for the inconvenience but this is clearly a matter beyond our control. We are notifying customers on cancelled services and are offering a full refund. We will continue to monitor the situation closely."

Virgin Atlantic shared with us,

“On Thursday evening we took the decision to start avoiding Russian airspace and our flight paths will continue to be adjusted for some Virgin Atlantic passenger services between the UK, Pakistan and India. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers by slightly longer flight times."The safety and security of our customers and people always comes first and we’re monitoring the situation in Ukraine and Russia extremely carefully following the escalation of conflict, continuing to operate in full compliance with relevant safety regulators, authorities and governments.”

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Affected flight routes

Although British Airways doesn’t seem stressed about the closure of a vast amount of airspace, the decision could impact some of its key flight routes. By Great Circle routing, flights to destinations such as Beijing, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Guangzhou could be left to find an alternative routing.

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British Airways flies to a number of far eastern destinations that will be impacted by the ban. Photo: British Airways

Virgin Atlantic will also find itself needing to re-draw its routemaps too. The airline currently flies to both Shanghai and Hong Kong, two destinations that will no longer be reachable by direct routing.

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Virgin's services to Hong Kong and Shanghai will be affected. Photo: Virgin Atlantic

As is illustrated by the map below, China, Japan and destinations in the north of the far east are most impacted by the closure. Usually, airlines like BA and Virgin would overfly Russia to connect to these destinations. With that now impossible, the airlines will be forced to take alternative routes, adding cost and time to the services being operated.

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Routes to the far east will need to be adjusted. Photo: GCMaps

Destinations further south in the far east are less acutely affected. Services to places like Bangkok and Singapore will need to head further south than they usually do, but not by a lot. Nevertheless, given the soaring costs of jetfuel and the grave pressure on the industry following the last two years of travel strife, anything that disrupts the efficiency of operations is going to be highly unwelcome.

Cargo could sink

Although there aren’t a huge number of passengers flying to the far east right now, the hubs in China particularly remain an important source of cargo revenue for airlines in the UK. According to Statista, in 2020, the freight uplifted by UK airlines totaled more than 707,000 metric tons, with British Airways moving some 159,000 tons itself.

Also high in the list for freight moved by UK carriers was Virgin Atlantic. In March 2020, Virgin operated its first-ever cargo flight, a direct response to COVID and the lack of international flying. Since then, it has built a solid foundation in the cargo market, and in 2020 alone, it moved the second-largest amount of cargo of any British airline, uplifting some 67,000 tons.

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Selling your available cargo space on passenger flights can be a lucrative source of additional revenue. Photo: Virgin Atlantic

Other players who could be affected include DHL Air, Cargologic and Titan Airways. Simple Flying has reached out to all affected airlines to evaluate how these decisions will impact future operations.

Throughout the pandemic, cargo has been the one bright spot on the horizon for many airlines. For airlines completely reliant on long-haul flying such as Virgin Atlantic, it has been a lifesaver. In the airline’s end of 2020 annual report, it stated,

“Against a volatile outlook for international travel, our cargo team has delivered a record performance. Utilising our passenger configured Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s, they operated nearly 4,000 cargo only sectors, carried more than 7,000 tonnes of PPE and delivered £319m in revenues, a 49% increase on 2019 performance.”

With fewer passenger planes flying, the yield for cargo rose massively. Virgin noted that the revenue generated by these activities was up 148% in 2020, with the CFO Oliver Byers noting that it was the ‘standout performer’ in a very difficult year. Although the year still ended in a loss, it would have been much larger were it not for the airline’s agile switch to more freight flying.

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As well as passenger airlines, cargo-only airlines operating out of the UK are likely to be affected. Photo: Cargologic

The fallout

Although the impact will inevitably be felt by all airlines operating passenger and cargo flights to the east from the UK, the effect will be lessened by the uptick in passenger flying today. With many countries removing restrictions from travel, and the UK slashing all COVID measures from yesterday, airlines are back to earning their bread and butter in other markets.

Nevertheless, flights to Asia remain critical for some operations, notably cargo. With shipping ports backed up and airfreight delivering crucial supplies such as medicines and other goods, ceasing flights to Asia is out of the question. Instead, these airlines will need to fly further, longer and at a greater cost until the airspace ban is lifted.

It remains to be seen how this will affect the consumer markets, and how much the price of our favorite goods will go up as a result.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.