Finnair Oyj faces a wipeout of its Asian traffic as a tit-for-tat of airspace closures in Europe and Russia jeopardizes its main long-haul strategy. Finland’s national carrier has carved out a niche providing transit passengers from smaller European cities the shortest flight times to Asia. But the flights through its Helsinki hub to destinations like Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai rely on access to Siberian airspace. It won’t make financial sense to operate those flights if Russia’s airspace is closed, Finnair said on Sunday. “For many of our North-East Asia flights, rerouting would mean considerably longer flight time, and operations would not be economically feasible,” spokeswoman Paivyt Tallqvist said in an emailed response to questions after the Finnish government said it was preparing to end Russian flights. A reciprocal ban by Russia would bring significant consequences, “as our Asian traffic in practice stops,” she said. More than a dozen European countries closed their airspace to airlines from Russia, which reciprocated with its own bans in an echo of the Cold War restrictions that caused airlines to fly circuitous intercontinental routes.<br/>
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British Airways has cancelled all its short-haul flights from London’s Heathrow airport until midday on Saturday, blaming a “technical failure” with its IT systems. The airline said the disruption was not caused by a cyber attack, and instead said it had suffered problems with its computer hardware. Long-haul services from Heathrow and all flights at Gatwick and London City Airport were still operating normally on Saturday morning. “We know we have let our customers down and we will do everything we can to make this up to them — but for now our focus is on getting as many customers and flights away as we can,” BA said. The airline has regularly cancelled part of its short-haul schedules to protect the long-haul network when dealing with disruption. The incident came less than 24 hours after BA was forced to change its flight plans in response to Russia’s decision to ban UK airlines from its airspace. BA has suspended flights to Moscow and confirmed it would reroute flights, leading to longer journeys and higher fuel costs on flights heading to parts of Asia. The company also had to deal with disruption caused by heavy storms in the UK earlier this month, which saw flight cancellations and chaos with ground operations at Heathrow, including passengers that were left stranded without their bags. BA CE Sean Doyle has been working to restore the airline’s reputation, including resetting relations with passengers and crew. But the incident will remind flyers of the IT failure which hobbled the airline over a busy holiday weekend in 2017, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded and inflicting lasting damage on the airline’s brand.<br/>
Russia has banned British Airways and other UK airlines from flying over or landing on its territory, in a move that disrupts flightpaths just as carriers had grown confident the worst of the pandemic was behind them. International Airlines Group, the owner of British Airways and Iberia, said on Friday that it expected to put two years and E10b of losses behind it and return to profitability this year. But as the airline’s management was briefing analysts on its upbeat forecasts, Moscow announced the ban in retaliation for a UK government decision earlier this week to stop Russia’s flagship carrier Aeroflot landing in Britain. As a result of the move by the Kremlin, British Airways suspended flights to Moscow and confirmed it would reroute to avoid Russian airspace, leading to longer flight times and higher fuel costs on flights heading to parts of Asia. Airlines flying from Europe to north East Asia typically use the curvature of the earth to take a route over Russia’s northern regions into countries such as China and Japan. Flight tracking data showed a BA flight between Delhi and London flew west in an hour long detour over the Caspian Sea to avoid Russia on Friday, while two Virgin Atlantic flights from Asia also skirted Russia. Sean Doyle, the CE of British Airways, said he only anticipated a “minimal impact on our flying programme” as the airline has not yet rebuilt its schedules to Asia that were disrupted by the pandemic. “We are able to reroute our network . . . and for the most part carry on as normal,” he said. But in the longer run, the Russian action threatens the profitability of key routes between Europe and Asia. Robert Boyle, a consultant and former head of strategy at IAG, calculated that avoiding Russian airspace on flights from Europe would add 20 per cent extra distance for north Asia destinations and around 10% for cities like Hong Kong. “As well as the additional time and cost involved, it would reduce the competitive advantage that European airlines have of offering direct flights from Asia to Europe, compared to transferring via Istanbul or the Gulf,” he said. Doyle said IAG’s plans for going back into north Asia were “very much on hold”, and highlighted plans to rebuild schedules around the profitable transatlantic routes, where IAG expects to operate 100 per cent of its pre-pandemic schedule by the third-quarter of this year. IAG on Friday announced a full-year operating loss after exceptional items of E2.8b, an improvement on a loss of E7.5b in 2020.<br/>
Qantas is opting to use an alternative flight path between Darwin and London that avoids Russian airspace after the invasion of Ukraine, the airline said on Sunday. "Given the current circumstances and complexities, we're opting to use one of our alternative flight paths that doesn't overfly Russia, while we continue to monitor this evolving situation," it said. Flights operated over northern Russia will be routed over the Middle East and southern Europe instead, increasing flight times by about an hour.<br/>
Qatar Airways has asked a UK court to reinstate an order for 50 Airbus A321neo passenger jets that the European planemaker revoked as part of a bitter dispute over the partial grounding of larger A350s, a court filing showed on Friday. Failing that, the Gulf carrier is asking a UK judge to award the airline unquantified damages over the planemaker's decision to withdraw what it described as a "unique" plane as it prepares to receive the 220-seat A321neo from February next year. Airbus declined comment on the filing. The claim is the latest salvo in a months-old contractual and safety dispute that has brought relations between two of the industry's largest players to an all-time low. The two sides are at loggerheads over erosion to the painted surface and gaps in lightning protection on A350 jets. So far, the airline has said Qatar authorities have grounded 21 of its 53 A350s over safety concerns, prompting the airline to sue Airbus for more than $600 million as it prepares for an influx of visitors ahead of this year's FIFA World Cup. In the new filing, Qatar Airways disclosed that a further A350 had been grounded on Feb. 13. Airbus has acknowledged quality problems but accused the airline of mislabelling them as safety woes to get compensation. European regulators have said the problems do not amount to an airworthiness issue on the jet, which is not grounded elsewhere.<br/>