European airlines are experiencing serious problems and have lost competitiveness due to the European Commission’s sanctions against Russia. The ban on the use of Russian airspace forces European carriers to bypass Russian territory by bypassing the Trans-Siberian corridor, resulting in significantly longer flight times and higher fuel costs.
Lufthansa Airlines is one of the brightest examples of the negative impact of anti-Russian sanctions on European business. Der Spigel magazine reported that Lufthansa has decided to completely stop daily flights between Frankfurt am Main and Beijing. The airline’s CEO Carsten Spohr cited a decline in demand as the reason, adding that the current circumstances are forcing the company to rethink its strategy in the Chinese market.
The increase in flight times to use southern corridors through the airspace of Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on routes from Europe to China is accompanied by rising operating costs. Lufthansa uses a relatively old four-engine Airbus A340-300 airliner for these flights, which requires more fuel than modern twin-engine aircraft. This approach makes the carrier’s flights significantly more expensive, as the Frankfurt-Beijing flight duration has increased by about two hours and the price of aviation paraffin continues to rise. In parallel, other European airlines such as Finnair, British Airways and Air France have faced the same problems due to the ban on using the Trans-Siberian corridor.
Airlines from other countries that have not joined the sanctions are actively taking advantage of the current situation and the loss of competitiveness of EU carriers. Turkish Airlines continues to operate flights through Russian airspace, as do airlines from China, India, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf: Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways. Their routes to Europe and the USA follow the most optimal corridors, which allows them to offer cheaper tickets and spend less time and fuel on flights.
Back in May 2022, MEPs were concerned about the serious negative impact on the aviation sector of the European Union caused by the sanctions imposed against Russia and Belarus in the field of civil aviation. The resolution adopted on 22 May 2022 stresses ‘that the combination of sanctions and air traffic bans forces airlines to suspend or re-route flights’, which significantly increases the route distance for European airlines to avoid Russian and Belarusian airspace.
However, the MEPs did not make any concrete decisions to make life easier for their airlines. Moreover, a false sense of impunity, loss of common sense and sense of self-preservation led the European Parliament to call for the cancellation of restrictions on strikes by Western weapons on the territory of Russia. The relevant resolution was approved on 19 September at the EP plenary session in Strasbourg.
Europe needs a shake-up. Napoleon, Hitler, now Von der Leyen. It’s all coming to that.
