Russia Threatening To Restrict Airspace

a man in a suit and tie speaking into microphones
image  Dmitry Medvedev

First Russia made subtle threats about using nuclear weapons and now they are suggesting “that they will retaliate against a new round of Western sanctions” related to the conflict with Ukraine in a new way.

Russia is threatening to “block flights through its airspace”.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that “Western sanctions will not make the Kremlin change course… like the Chinese they will pull together”.

So how could this affect you?

According to the Yahoo News article, back in August Russia thought about banning the use of Russian airspace by European airlines- “the so-called overflight rights needed to take the shortest route between Europe and Asia”.

Medvedev says that the ban could mean “many airlines would go bankrupt”.

While trying to better understand what kind of problems could come if Russia was to restrict airspace, I came across an article from RT.com.

According to RT “Flying over Russian airspace saves Western airlines headed to Asia at least 4 hours of flight time, which adds up to about $30,000 per flight”.

In the article Lufthansa says that it could lose over €1 billion in three months if it was not allowed to use Russian airspace. 

Find out more in the article from Yahoo here.

2 thoughts on “Russia Threatening To Restrict Airspace

  1. It’s probably a matter of perspective. During the Cold War, no European or American carrier could fly over USSR/Eastern bloc/China air space so they flew around these countries or over the North Pole region. When the Cold War ended, the airlines must have had a party since they’d be saving lots of $$$ in fuel costs now that they could fly over those restricted regions. ;)4

    1. Joey- Good points. I just wonder if this were to happen again if it would cause an increase in ticket prices. Someone needs to pick up the slack and cover the costs.

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