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Alaska's Anchorage Airport said airlines have started making inquiries about capacity in case routes over Russia are impacted due to the Ukraine crisis, in a sign of the conflict's growing fallout for the global aviation industry. The airport was a popular refuelling hub for long-haul flights during the Cold War, when Western airlines were unable to access Russian airspace on routes from Europe to Asia. Japan Airlines cancelled its Thursday evening flight to Moscow, citing potential safety risks, while Britain closed its airspace to Russian airlines, including Aeroflot, as the conflict's impact on the industry widened beyond Ukraine to Russia. Ukrainian forces on Thursday were battling Russian invaders on three sides after Moscow unleashed the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. Airspace in Ukraine, Moldova, parts of Belarus and in southern Russia near the Ukraine border was closed as a result, giving airlines a narrower range of routing options. Emirates said it had made minor routing changes to Stockholm, Moscow, St. Petersburg and some US flights that were hit by the airspace closings, leading to slightly longer flight times. OPSGROUP, an aviation industry cooperative that shares information on flight risks, said any aircraft travelling through Russian airspace should have contingency plans in place for closed airspace due to risks or sanctions. "Russia are unlikely to initiate their own sanctions and airspace bans as they would not wish to see Aeroflot receive reciprocal bans," OPSGROUP said. "However, they may react in response to sanctions from other states."<br/>

Airlines scrambled to adapt to conflict in Europe on Thursday as Ukraine closed its airspace, fuel prices soared and carriers were urged to "exercise caution" deep inside Russia hours after Moscow's military invaded Ukraine. Moldova, southwest of Ukraine, also halted flights, while Belarus to the north said civilian flights could no longer fly over part of its territory after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the dawn operation. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said Ukraine's skies and airspace in Russia and Belarus within 100 nautical miles of borders with Ukraine could pose risks. "In particular, there is a risk of both intentional targeting and misidentification of civil aircraft," the agency said. "The presence and possible use of a wide range of ground and airborne warfare systems poses a high risk for civil flights operating at all altitudes and flight levels." It later issued an update on a broader area of Russian airspace, advising airlines to "exercise caution" when flying in air traffic regions controlled from Moscow or Rostov-on-Don. The FAA expanded an area in or near Ukraine where US airlines cannot operate. The aviation industry has taken heightened notice of the risks conflicts pose to civil aviation since Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014. EASA said Russia's defense ministry had sent Ukraine an urgent message warning of a high risk to flight safety due to the use of weapons and military equipment, and asked Ukraine's air traffic control to stop flights. Websites, which before the escalation had shown multiple intelligence-gathering flights over or near Ukraine as the West showcased support by transmitting detectable signals in recent weeks, showed empty space as civil flights halted and analysts said any military flights went dark. Airlines skirted the whole country in crowded corridors to the north and west, leaving a hole in the aviation map.<br/>

Ukraine's government is lobbying the Biden administration to cut Russia off from US software updates, to ban Russian flights, and to block the supply of goods to Russia's civil aviation industry in an effort to rally support for drastic sanctions while the Kremlin pushes deeper into Ukrainian territory. The demands, which a Ukrainian diplomat in Washington circulated on Thursday in a brief 14-point memo to American officials, go beyond export control measures promised by the White House, which has vowed to spare Russian consumers from the brunt of sanctions. The Ukrainians asked their American counterparts to bar US companies from "supplying and updating software in the interests of Russian consumers" or from supplying US telecommunications products, including microelectronics, to Russia. In addition, the Ukrainians called on the United States to bar the supply of goods and technologies, including software for use in the Russian aviation industry, including civil aviation. Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Biden administration was working on a plan to cut Russia off from a vast swath of low- and high-tech US and foreign-made goods, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts. read more The US Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <br/>

Airlines cancelled and rerouted flights to steer clear of Ukraine and the surrounding region on Thursday as urgent warnings from safety regulators left a growing swath of airspace in eastern Europe off limits. The outbreak of war and a spike in the price of oil to more than $100 per barrel sent shares in major European airlines tumbling and opened up new problems for an industry still recovering from the pandemic. Ukraine’s air traffic agency declared the country’s airspace closed “due to the high risk of aviation safety for civilian aviation”, while the EU Aviation Safety Agency warned of the danger of flying in Russia and Belarus within 100 nautical miles of the Ukrainian border. Airlines were also warned to “exercise caution” when flying over parts of airspace operated by Moscow and Rostov air traffic control in Russia “due to heightened military activity, which may include launches of mid-range missiles penetrating into controlled airspace”. Airspace over Moldova and parts of Belarus were also closed by the respective national governments on Thursday. Industry bosses held a crisis call with EU member states in the morning to discuss the Russian invasion, according to a person with knowledge of the discussion. They were told that based on air traffic data from February 11, 610 aircraft per day could be hit by the airspace restrictions. The figure excludes direct flights to and from Ukraine. There was no discussion on the call of the impact that closing all of Russian airspace would have, indicating that the industry still considers it highly unlikely. Ukraine’s president has called on western leaders to “close” Russian airspace as part of a package of retaliatory measures. Airlines stocks experienced some of the biggest falls in the markets with Hungarian based Wizz Air’s shares tumbling 13.5%, while British Airways owner IAG and easyJet slipped more than 8%. Russian carrier Aeroflot fell 25%, matching a broader collapse in Moscow equities. London listed Wizz and Irish low-cost rival Ryanair, two of the last major airlines still flying to Ukraine, both cancelled flights. <br/>

Operations of 12 airports in southern Russian cities have been temporarily suspended, the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency says on Thursday. "In view of complication of the situation around Ukraine, flights to certain airports in southern Russia have been temporarily limited from 03.45 am Moscow time of February 24, 2002. The restriction is effective until 03.45 am Moscow time of March 02, 2022. Operations are suspended in airports: Rostov-on-Don (Platov), Krasnodar (Pashkovsky), Anapa (Vityazevo), Gelendzhik, Elista, Stavropol, Belgorod, Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk, Voronezh and Simferopol," the Agency said. "Russian aviation authorities strongly encourage passengers of flights closest by time and welcomers not to arrive at airports," the regulator added.<br/>

Stirrings of a recovery in global travel are bringing airlines back from the brink, but the rebound may come too late for several carriers still facing a heightened risk of bankruptcy, a Bloomberg News analysis shows. Covid-19 paralyzed international aviation as nations locked their borders and imposed other restrictions that are only now being dismantled in some parts of the world. Asia is lagging, with China and Hong Kong almost completely walled off, and the financial positions of some airlines in the region have deteriorated since Bloomberg did the same analysis in March and November 2020. And while governments in Europe and the U.S. injected billions of dollars in aid into carriers, state help wasn’t as forthcoming elsewhere, leaving cash-strapped airlines to work out restructures in court or directly with creditors. “These airlines were already in a bad financial state” before Covid-19, said Mark Martin, founder of Dubai-based Martin Consulting LLC. Most of those still stuck in the quagmire are there because the markets they usually cater to came to a standstill due to the pandemic, and they had no other way of attracting flyers, he said. Using the Z-score method developed in the 1960s by American finance professor Edward Altman to predict bankruptcies, Bloomberg studied publicly-listed major commercial airlines to identify those most under threat. Scores of 1.8 or below indicate bankruptcy risk, while above 3 suggests sound footing. This doesn’t take into account sources of potential additional funding. The Z-score uses five variables: liquidity, solvency, profitability, leverage and recent performance. The model initially had accuracy rates of more than 95% in predicting bankruptcies, but that has come down to between 80% and 90% for forecasts made within a year of insolvency, Altman said in a 2018 interview.<br/>

Freezing rain and drizzle is disrupting travel from Central Texas to the Great Lakes, with ice-glazed roads leading to hundreds of traffic accidents. Hundreds of flights were canceled Wednesday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as freezing rain iced parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas braced for an ice storm. More than half an inch of ice could accumulate in parts of the Ozarks through Friday morning, while a quarter- to a half-inch was expected in North Texas through Thursday, the National Weather Service said. Airlines had canceled more than 2,000 Thursday flights by Wednesday night, according to the FlightAware.com tracking site. About half of them were at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where temperatures were expected to top out above freezing only briefly late Thursday afternoon. DFW Airport is the biggest in the American Airlines network, and American had canceled 21% of its Thursday flights by Wednesday night, according to FlightAware.<br/>