Russian invasion of Ukraine: planes re-use Cold War air corridors


Transport

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War between Ukraine and Russiacase

With the ban on flying over Russian skies for several dozen countries, in addition to the fear of seeing a plane being hit over Ukraine, many companies are redefining their flight plans. This leads to an explosion in travel times and costs.

The consequences of the Russian invasion can also be seen in the air. Since the end of February, many flights and even lines have been canceled, whether they are bound, of course, for conflict zones, but also for Belarus and Russia. The impact goes far beyond that. The planet’s air corridors have also been transformed, to such an extent that some journeys are extended by several hours, which has an impact on the number of hours worked by on-board personnel and the cost of the journey. Changes that encourage global companies to rediscover air corridors they only used during the Cold War to bypass the USSR, before the thaw made it possible to use shortcuts above the Russian sky.

Some eloquent examples. An Istanbul-Moscow flight usually took less than three hours. However, according to a survey carried out on Flightradar24, Turkish Airlines flight TK417 which took off this Wednesday at 10:38 a.m. landed on the runways of Vnukovo, in the Russian capital, at 2:27 p.m. thirty hour. At Domodedovo airport, southeast of Moscow, an El Al Boeing 787-8 from Tel Aviv then landed. He had taken off five hours and thirty minutes before, instead of the usual three and a half hours.

These two flights had to bypass Ukraine, the first passing over Poland, and the second with a…



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