CLOSING AIRSPACE IS LIKE SCORING A SELF GOAL

The freedoms of the air are a set of commercial aviation rights granting a country's airlines the privilege to enter and land in another country's airspace. They were formulated as a result of disagreements over the extent of aviation liberalisation in the Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944, known as the Chicago Convention. The freedoms of the air are the fundamental building blocks of the international commercial aviation route network. The use of the terms "freedom" and "right" confers entitlement to operate international air services only within the scope of the multilateral and bilateral treaties that allow them.

 

When a nation or a block of countries shuts its airspace to the aircraft of a certain country, the latter’s planes are not able to fly over that particular geography or land at any airports within it. In this case, the control towers in the banning nations make sure no airline from the offending crosses its airspace, leave alone land in one of its airports. Any slip-up is taken seriously and investigated.

 

Blocking airspace for even civilian airplanes is one of the commonest weapons employed by warring countries. Pakistan blocks its airspace for Indian planes at the drop of a hat and all west bound flights have to take a southern route over the Arabian Sea and Gulf States to reach Europe or America. In mid-2017, during a tiff with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE closed their airspaces to Qatar Airways. The Saudi coalition - which had accused Qatar of state-sponsored terrorism, justified the ban. That forced Qatar Airways flights to and from Europe and to North Africa to make a long detour over Iraq, Jordan, Israel and the Mediterranean rather than the direct route over Saudi Arabia. The coalition finally relented and reopened their airspace in January 2021 but not before afflicting heavy losses in terms of extra cost of aviation fuel on the state owned carrier of Qatar.

 

Following the Ukraine crisis the world is witnessing another season of madness of blocking airspace for civilian planes from enemy countries. The Americans and their NATO allies started it by blocking their airspace for Aeroflot. Not to be outdone Russia swiftly reciprocated by blocking its airspace for all civilian airplanes of NATO countries. This has implications for European airlines operating Asian routes since so many great circle routes between Europe and Asia – the shortest distance between two points on the globe – pass through Russian airspace. Spread over a land area of 16.4 million square kilometers, covering almost 11 per cent of the world's landmass and 11 time zones, Russia dwarfs every other country. That sheer bulk makes Russia an important player in world aviation, and right now it's giving some airlines a major headache.

 

Whether it is British Airways or Lufthansa, Air France or Finnair, Air Canada or United, KLM or Qantas all are in a soup of their own creation.  Flights like Frankfurt to Seoul, Tokyo to Paris, London to Singapore and Bangkok to Copenhagen, Munich to Singapore, Darwin to London, and Sydney to London all have to cross the Russian airspace if they have to take the shortest route. 

 

 

 

To drive home the point I am trying to make let me take the example of Finnair, Finland’s national carrier. If you see the map Finnair is uniquely positioned to take advantage of great circle air routes that offer fast flight times between Helsinki and a number of East Asian capitals. However all those routes overfly Russia. At the beginning of March Finnair announced it was suspending its lucrative routes to Seoul, Osaka, Tokyo, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Finnair continues to operate to Bangkok, Phuket and Singapore. Now if I take the example of the Helsinki – Tokyo flight this flight, which took around 8 ½ hours across Russian airspace, now takes about 4½ hours longer. Imagine how much extra fossil fuel is being burnt to pollute the environment and how much more it is costing both the airlines and its flyers! Before Russia closed its airspace to European carriers, Finnair was operating an average of more than 10 flights through Russian airspace every day. So one must stop and ask oneself some tough questions – who is exactly being punished by this stupidity? I am sure it is not Putin.

 

Airlines of countries not inimical to Russia like Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, Korean Air, Eva Air, Asiana, Air India and Cathay Pacific are operating in Russian airspace. As they continue to fly shorter routes they can keep their ticket price lower than their European competitors and are, with every passing day, making them non-viable.  Closing airspace cannot be a viable option in the long run. It is bad for business, bad for air travellers and bad for environment.