British Airways and Virgin Atlantic flights from London’s Heathrow airport to India will take an hour or so longer because they are rerouted to avoid Ukrainian and Russian airspace.
In any case, Russia has banned all British airlines from its airspace a day after the Boris Johnson government announced that the Russian flagship carrier Aeroflot would be excluded from the UK airspace as part of the package of sanctions aimed at President Vladimir Putin.
BA said in a statement: “We have suspended our flights to Moscow and also the use of Russian airspace, following the confirmation of Russian government restrictions. We apologise for the inconvenience but this is clearly a matter beyond our control. We are notifying customers on cancelled services and are offering a full refund. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
Virgin Atlantic, which operates daily services to Delhi and Mumbai, told The Telegraph: “Virgin Atlantic is not overflying Russia until further notice. We took the decision to avoid the airspace from 1900 GMT on Thursday, 24 February.
“Subsequent to this decision, on Friday, 25 February the Russian authorities announced a restriction for UK carriers in Russian airspace, effective from 0800 GMT.
“Four passenger routes we currently serve typically overfly Russia — flights between London Heathrow and Islamabad, Lahore, Delhi and services between Manchester and Islamabad. Avoiding Russian airspace will result in slightly longer flight times by 15-60 minutes, depending on the route.
“As ever, our airport, cabin crew and customer teams will support customers with any connecting flights.
“Virgin Atlantic has not overflown Ukraine since 2014, going above and beyond official guidance, which is supplemented by our own risk assessments. This has included adjustments to our flight planning since December to further increase distance from the Ukraine-Russia border.”
The industry is alert to the risks posed since the passenger flight MH17 was shot down in Ukrainian airspace in 2014. A missile brought down the Malaysia Airlines passenger plane killing all 298 people on board. It was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
It came amid heavy fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region, which had just declared independence.
On Friday in Moscow, the Russian Civil Aviation Authority, Rosaviatsia, responded to the sanctions imposed by the UK: “This measure was taken in accordance with the provisions of the Intergovernmental Air Services Agreement between Russia and the UK as a response to unfriendly decisions by the UK aviation authorities regarding the restriction on regular flights of aircraft owned, leased or operated by a person associated with Russia or registered in Russia.”
Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, wasn’t impressed.
“I think that’s their retaliation for us yesterday banning Aeroflot from using and landing in the United Kingdom,” he said. “
That’s their tit for tat response.” On BBC Radio 4 Today, he made a surprising claim — that Russia has failed on day one to take any of its objectives. “It failed because of the lethal aid (supplied partly by Britain) that allowed (Ukrainians) to take on Russian tanks and aircraft.”
“They’ve lost about 450 personnel, the Russian armed forces. They’ve failed with their elite Spetsnaz to take the airport just north of Kiev.”
Pressed by several Ukrainian politicians to impose a no fly zone over Ukraine, he responded: “I will not trigger a European war. But what I will do is help Ukraine fight in every street with every piece of equipment we can get to them.
“To do a no-fly zone, I would have to put British fighter jets directly against Russian fighter jets. Nato would have to effectively declare war on Russia. Because that’s what you would do.
“Despite Britain’s sponsorship and support for Ukraine going back to 2008, trying to help Ukraine into Nato, other nations didn’t want them to come in,” Wallace revealed.
