Two airlines cancel Moscow flights as EU discusses Belarus sanctions

Two European airlines had to cancel flights to Moscow after Russian authorities failed to approve new routes that avoided Belarus’s airspace in response to Minsk’s interception of a passenger jet. Air France and Austrian Airlines sought to reroute flights that would normally fly over Belarus when EU governments demanded their airlines avoid the country’s airspace. The EU was acting in response to the interception of Ryanair flight 4978 by Belarusian authorities on Sunday in order to detain an opposition activist. Air France and Austrian Airlines said Russian aviation authorities had not approved the new routes, leading to the cancellation of a flight from Paris to Moscow on Wednesday, and from Vienna to Moscow on Thursday. An Air France flight to Russia on Friday was still awaiting permission to use a new route avoiding Belarus. “The Russian reaction is absolutely incomprehensible to us,” Austria’s foreign ministry was quoted as saying by Reuters on Thursday. Several other European carriers, including KLM and a British Airways cargo flight, have been allowed to land in Russia using new routes, however. Willie Walsh, head of the International Air Transport Association, has said it is “disturbing” to see a commercial flight diverted “for clearly bogus reasons”. “I would like to think this does not set a precedent. It’s important we build on public and united condemnation . . . to ensure we don’t see a repeat of this behaviour,” he told a media conference on Wednesday.<br/>