Airlines Flying Around Belarus Face Delays and Higher Fuel Cost

(Bloomberg) -- Belarus may have become increasingly isolated with every year that dictator Alexander Lukashenko clings to power. But the country has remained an important fly-over territory for airliners, particularly since parts of neighboring Ukraine were deemed unsafe to traverse in the wake of the 2014 downing of a Malaysian Airlines aircraft.

Now European airlines have begun skirting around Belarus at the directive of European Union leaders.

The move follows international furor over the interception on May 23 of a Ryanair Holdings Plc jetliner, which was forced to land in Minsk en route from Greece to Lithuania so that authorities could arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist who was on board.

On Tuesday, long-haul airliners belonging to Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and British Airways began flying over Latvia instead of the traditional route over Belarus, adding extra distance and time to the flights. Eurocontrol, which is responsible for the airspace over the region, said that it was working with the EU and all its member states to facilitate any action.

Busy Route

The airspace over Belarus is part of a major route for flights between Asia and Europe. Barring overflight by European airlines may deprive Belarus of as much as half of its $60-70 million in annual air transit fees, said Oleksandr Laneckij of aviation consultancy Friendly Avia Support.

State airline Belavia could feel a similar halving of its annual revenue, which about $210 million in 2020, Laneckij said. The U.K. suspended the carrier’s operating permit that lets it land abroad, and some EU countries have followed suit.

The commercial aviation industry has become more accustomed to no-fly zones, be it because of erupting volcanoes in Iceland or Indonesia, conflicts on the ground that can threaten aircraft passing overhead or a politically motivated ban, as was the case for several years for Qatar, which wasn’t able until recently to pass through Saudi Arabia and other allied countries.

On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia closed its airspace to Israeli flights, news service Channel 13 reported, leading to delays.

Short haul carriers such as Wizz Air Holdings Plc and Ryanair have also begun flying circuitous routes around Belarus on some of their services, according to airplane tracking website FlightRadar24.

Belavia, meanwhile, has canceled some flights. It usually operates 20 routes to 17 EU countries, including four destinations in Germany, according to aviation consultancy Cirium.

While it would depend on the route, avoiding Belarus will have a bigger impact on short-haul journeys that normally pass through the region, according to John Strickland, a consultant at London-based JLS Consulting. Conversely, long-distance flights have more time and flexibility to reroute, though the latest no-fly zone adds to to the industry’s growing list of restrictions in the pandemic.

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