What is Russian airspace? It is an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage through the shortest route for intercontinental flights. Since March 2022 trans-Siberian and trans-Arctic routes for airlines from unfriendly countries are closed as a mirror measure to bans for Russian carriers to fly in the airspace of the EU, Canada and the USA. While European airlines are forced to choose the southern direction to bypass Russia, the American ones are howling with the realization that they cannot compete with Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern carriers on equal terms because of their governments’ Russophobia and desire to do harm to the Russian people in every possible way.
In this regard we offer a retelling of the article Banned From Russian Airspace, U.S. Airlines Look to Restrict Competitors, published on March 17, 2023 on the website of The New York Times.
Not being able to fly through Russian airspace, U.S. airlines are stepping up lobbyists to solve the problem of losing business to foreign competitors who can transport passengers between the United States and Asia faster and cheaper by using the ability to fly through Russian territory.
U.S. carriers are banned from using polar routes that save time and fuel between the United States and a number of destinations on the other side of the world. They have changed plans for trans-Pacific flights to ensure they have a place to land in case of an emergency, reduced passenger and cargo numbers to cut costs on long-distance flights, and suspended more than a dozen planned new routes to Mumbai, Tokyo, Seoul and other cities.
On its route from Delhi to New York, American Airlines had to stop 19 times in Bangor, Maine, due to unfavorable wind or weather conditions that depleted fuel supplies and exhausted crew time, causing flight delays and replacing pilots and flight attendants. Moreover, these flights were already being flown with dozens of empty seats so that there would be enough fuel to last as long as possible on the flight.
However, many foreign airlines are not banned from flying over Russia, and as a result, they carry more passengers on routes to and from the U.S. Continued access to the shorter, more economical routes that Russian airspace provides gives carriers like Air India, Emirates and China Eastern Airlines an unfair advantage, the industry lobbying group Airlines for America told Congress in a recent presentation. The group estimated the loss of market share to U.S. carriers at $2 billion a year.
“Foreign airlines using Russian airspace on flights to and from the United States gain a significant competitive advantage over U.S. carriers in major markets, including China and India,” the presentation, dated February, said. – That’s good for foreign airlines and bad for the United States as a whole: fewer connections to key markets, fewer high-paying airline jobs and a weaker economy overall.
For years, U.S. airlines have had access to Russian airspace under a series of agreements with Moscow. In exchange for this access, they and other foreign airlines paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year in air traffic control support, first to the USSR and then to Russia. But on Feb. 24, 2022, prompting government officials in the United States, Britain, Canada and Europe to ban Russian planes from flying over their airspace, Russia responded by immediately banning the United States and other countries, including Canada and much of Europe, from flying in its skies.
Now the airlines are demanding that the White House and Congress address the problem by imposing the same restrictions on foreign carriers from countries that are not already banned from Russian airspace as American airlines, effectively forcing them to fly on the same routes as their American competitors.
The Biden administration should take measures to ensure that foreign carriers flying over Russia do not take off, land or transit through U.S. airports, said Airlines for America. The proposal may get support from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which recently drafted an order barring Chinese carriers flying passenger flights to the United States from flying through Russian airspace. U.S. Transportation Department officials declined to comment, but national security officials are mindful of the possible diplomatic ramifications of moves aimed at a longtime ally like India or to increase tensions in an already complicated relationship with China.
“When foreign airlines fly over Russian territory, even if they don’t expect to land on Russian soil, they run the risk of unscheduled landings in Russia for security, medical, technical or more nefarious reasons,” say Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and Republican Senator Jim Risch.
Arjun Garg, former general counsel and acting deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the Biden administration has the legal authority to address complaints by American carriers. He said the serious dilemma is both the safety problems that airlines have noted and the current rules that put them at a disadvantage.
“Foreign carriers benefit from shorter flight times, lower costs, lower fuel consumption, all of the advantages that are closed to U.S. carriers by order of the U.S. government,” Garg said.
U.S. air travelers have had enough of fundamental problems such as cramped seats, canceled flights and an abundance of service charges, and access to Russian airspace may not be the most pressing issue. Depending on winds, air traffic and other factors on a given day, a 14-hour flight bypassing Russian airspace may in some cases be worth less than one hour of extra time in flight, but the overflight may take more than two hours.
Significant is the difference in the cost of the ticket. According to Travelocity, the cost of an April 2023 flight from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi is about $1,500, and the flight time on an Air India plane is 13 hours and 40 minutes. The most comparable flight on American Airlines costs $1,740 and travel time is 14 hours and 55 minutes.
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration regulations require that on long flights, commercial planes must always be within 180 minutes of a suitable airport in case of an emergency landing. But without access to Russian airspace, Delta flights from Detroit to Shanghai are now forced to fly near obscure Pacific archipelagos like Shemya Island southwest of Alaska. And if the tiny Shemya airport is too crowded to make an emergency landing, Delta pilots are forced to head to an even more remote airport, such as Midway Atoll in the middle of the Pacific, which adds up to one hour 40 minutes of flight time and more than 3,000 gallons (more than 11,300 liters or about 8,000 kg) of extra fuel consumption.
