(Moscow) The Russian airline Aeroflot announced on Saturday the suspension of its international flights from March 8, when Moscow is hit hard by Western sanctions in connection with Ukraine.
Posted at 7:34
This decision, which will come into effect at midnight, is due to new “circumstances which hamper the operation of flights”, the company said in a statement, adding that domestic connections and with Belarus would be maintained.
The gendarme of the Russian aviation, Rossaviatsia, for his part indicated that he had “recommended” to the Russian companies operating rental planes registered outside the country to stop flights abroad in order to avoid the seizure of the devices.
“This recommendation is the consequence of the very high risk of immobilization or confiscation of aircraft from Russian companies abroad,” he added.
Flights to foreign countries must cease on Saturday, and those from abroad on Monday, specifies Rossaviatsia.
The West has imposed drastic sanctions in the air transport sector, closing their spaces to Russian planes and stopping the supply of spare parts in particular to Boeing and Airbus, in the wake of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine.
Russian companies risk having some of their planes withdrawn: three-quarters of them belong not to companies but to lessors, according to the database of the specialized publication Aviation Week. If a quarter of these renters are Russian, nearly half are European.
The perimeter of the sanctions “allows all planes held by EU owners to return to the European Union”, indicated a European official at the beginning of the week, saying that he was in this regard “in contact with several credit companies -lease in Ireland”, where many of them are located.
The Russian company S7, the second in the country, announced on Friday that it would cease all flights abroad.