Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has suggested that if the EU escalates their sanctions against Russia to include its Energy sector, Russia will retaliate in kind with sanctions against the EU’s Airline Industry. This coming from an interview that was conducted by Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper and published today.
As it stands now, European airlines enjoy the ability to transit Russian airspace on their routes to Asia, which typically saves 2-4 hours of flight time and thousands of dollars in fuel costs versus having to fly around Russian airspace.
Should these events come to pass, it will cost an airline like Lufthansa over $1 billion in additional fuel and maintenance expense EVERY 3 MONTHS should the ability to fly over Russia be taken away. In fact, the Lufthansa Group operates 220 flights per week that transit Russian Airspace, so it’s quite easy to see how the additional expenses can add up quickly.
Of all the European Airlines, only KLM-Air France use Russian airspace more than Lufthansa; they transit Russian airspace 249 times per week (according to Bloomberg data).
As the war of words and sanctions continues to ratchet up, its unfortunate that no one in a position of influence clearly understands the concept of unintended consequences. With most European airlines operating at losses, or at best a paper thin profit margin, we may see some of the smaller airlines fail as a result of this volley of sanctions between the EU and Russia. At the same time Russia does not emerge as a winner in this situation either because they would lose millions in air traffic revenue generated by airlines transiting their airspace.
We’ll learn more in the coming days as the EU is set to meet today and announce their plans for increasing sanctions against Russia some time tomorrow. Early rumors suggest that Russia’s oil companies may be restricted from raising long term capital from European markets.
Main fault for the present crises is USA and its allies. They think they can rule the world. America has not learned a lesson from 9/11, they continue to bully smaller nations into submission and force them to comply with the American agenda. Wherever they enter they ruined that country. A good example is Libia where the american supported terrorists ruined the country and the lives of millions of Libians. Open your eyes widely you fools.
sunil fernando
I read an article today (I believe it was on the Washington Post’s website, but can’t recall exactly) that said if Russia did do this, they would be forfeiting a boatload of $$ in landing rights from US/EU airlines. The article further stated that EU carriers could just fly farther north of the polar region to get around this, and while that would hurt them, they could do it if they wanted/had to. If this is true, as Dan & No Fly Zone said above, Putin doing this would be a stupid political statement that would hurt Russia more than the US.
However, while I agree with No Fly Zone that Russia cannot win another Cold War, I don’t agree with him (or Dan) on the likelihood of them trying. I think there’s a very real chance that Putin will try this, although I won’t try to put specific odds on it.
I truly have to believe that Russia is not that stupid. Should they close their airspace to overflights, the major EU nations (and many others others) could and would revoke similar overflight – And LANDING rights for all Russian and Eastern Block nations, in a wink. That would hurt all, a lot, but all would likely survive. Next, Russia could – and would limit NG and other fuel exports to Western Europe. That would hurt W.E. a lot, but could they survive? Of course they could!!
At the end of they day, the West beat the East to end the Cold War, largely on economic grounds. It took a few years and it hurt a lot of people and nations in the West. I Truly hope that repeating that process is not necessary, but…
At the end of the day, Mr. Putin and his opportunist thugs are just that – Thugs. I also have to believe that they are not fools; Russia herself cannot likely survive another prolonged economic crisis similar to the one that in effect ended the ~45-year Cold War. Russia’s own citizens simply will not put up with it. Restricting airspace, Mr. Putin, is a childish move. We do not want to waste the money any more than you do, but if truly necessary, we CAN and WILL make your life extremely expensive; we’ve done it once and we can (afford) do it again. Your own citizens, Mr. Putin, will not suffer their way through another ‘broke’ 5-10 years, and that is exactly what you are asking them to do. It worked the first time, at least for a few years, but it cannot work again. In 2015 and beyond, if the West needs to Shut you Down – again, we CAN. Not good for either side, but we have far more adaptive capacity than does Russia or your Eastern Block, most of whom would prefer to join NATO anyway. Give them one more reason…
This seems unlikely to come to pass. If the Russians did this the EU/US would respond in kind. This may cost US/EU airlines money but it would basically ground every Russian airline. If Russians airlines lose the ability to fly over the Eastern EU (Baltic states, Poland, Slovakia) they will not be able to economically fly anywhere in Europe. If they can’t fly over Finland, that would pretty much preclude service to Canada and the USA from Moscow.
Sounds high to me as well. Given most European carriers have airline alliances, why can’t they just have their Asian partners fly those routes? 😉
that’s a good point. It makes perfect sense.
$350,000 in extra costs per flight? That sounds too high to me.
I think part of the factoring includes additional crew expense, increase maintenance schedule since the planes would be adding 8 hours per R/T, etc. The number came from LH so I’m assuming/hoping that their math is accurate! 🙂