European carriers have been struggling with longer and costlier flights to Asia due to the closure of Russian airspace as a result of Western sanctions on Russia, Politico Europe reported on Tuesday.
Western countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines as part of the sanctions imposed after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. In response, Moscow banned aircraft from ‘unfriendly nations’, forcing EU planes to reroute and resulting in higher fuel consumption and increased costs.
The closure of Russian airspace “has nothing to do with safety, nor with security,” Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) airline lobby said, claiming that the European airlines are “the victims of politics.”
The tit-for-tat sanctions have forced several European airlines, including Lufthansa, British Airways and Poland’s LOT, to suspend some routes between Europe and Asia. Meanwhile, Chinese and other non-European carriers have been boosting direct flights between the two continents since the sanctions do not affect them, the report said.
“It is a competitive disadvantage for the European carriers. That’s clear,” Berlin airport CEO Aletta von Massenbach told the outlet.
She noted that a German airline has to take a different route for flights between Berlin and Beijing than a Chinese carrier.
Politico cited recent research by the German Aerospace Center showing that sanctions had led to an increase in travel times and operational costs for European airlines, and eventually made airfares soar.
For instance, on Finnair’s Helsinki-Beijing flight, the significantly longer distance covered has resulted in an extra travel time of almost four hours.
In October, the CEO of Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM), Marjan Rintel, said that the EU should take financial measures to curb competition from Chinese airlines that can freely cross Russian airspace.
The European Commission has promised to study the issue of competition in international routes, but, according to Politico, the airline industry remains skeptical that Brussels will act.
The market share of Chinese airlines for routes between Asia and Europe has increased. China Eastern Airlines announced last summer that it was expanding European capacity to 19 routes and 244 weekly round trips. China Southern Airlines now reportedly serves 11 destinations in Europe. Air China, which is one of the main carriers connecting China and Europe, serving 32 routes and 53 daily flights, has exceeded its 2019 capacity deployment level by 116%, according to China’s Global Times.
Walsh voiced hope that the potential end of the Ukraine conflict will bring about a return to a “more normal environment.”
“Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I would expect that that’s what everybody wants to see,” he said.