EU Closes Its Airspace For Russian Airlines

Many European countries have already closed their airspace for Russian airlines, and now a decision to close the bloc’s airspace has been made at the EU level.

Russian-owned, Russian-registered, and Russian-controlled aircraft cannot land, take off or overfly EU territory.

Statement from Ursula von der Leyen:

First, we are shutting down the EU airspace for Russians.

We are proposing a prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft.

These aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU.

This will apply to any plane owned, chartered or otherwise controlled by a Russian legal or natural person.

So let me be very clear.

Our airspace will be closed to every Russian plane – and that includes the private jets of oligarchs.

Conclusion

We already wrote earlier today that many European airlines have already canceled their flights that usually use Russian airspace. In contrast, others try to reroute them, resulting in a much longer flight time.

It is unclear if airlines based in Asia continue to overfly Russia or try to avoid the airspace.