The CEO of major aircraft-leasing company Avolon on Tuesday accused Russia of “robbery” after President Vladimir Putin’s government seized several leased planes. The ordeal will have lasting impacts on the company’s relationship with the country, said the executive, Domhnal Slattery, casting doubt on whether the second-largest aircraft lessor would do meaningful business with Russian airlines ever again. “We try every day but as of today [there is] zero chance of getting those back right now,” he said. Western aircraft-leasing companies have been trying to recover hundreds of planes that are in Russia. They were required under sanctions in protest of Russia’s attack on Ukraine to sever contracts with Russian customers. But Putin earlier this month signed a law that would allow the country’s carriers to fly the planes domestically and re-register them, dimming the prospects for their recovery by foreign owners. Some $10 billion worth of foreign-owned jets that were leased to Russian carriers are stuck in the country. “It’s just robbery. They’ve stolen the airplanes. It’s incomprehensible,” Slattery said. Avolon, which is based in Dublin, had 14 planes placed in Russia and has recovered four of them. It now has net exposure of about $200 million, Slattery said. He liked it to a “headache, not a migraine” for the firm, which had more than 800 planes as of the end of last year. Russia’s Putin doesn’t view losing as an option, says New School professor Nina Khrushcheva. “It will be a very, very long time if ever that we would have appetite for incremental exposure” in Russia again, Slattery said. Rented planes are key for Russia’s fleet of more than 970 planes with about 500 managed by a foreign owner, according to aviation data and consulting firm Cirium.<br/>
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Cathay Pacific Airways plans to reroute its New York-Hong Kong service to avoid Russian airspace, in what would be the world’s longest commercial passenger flight by distance. It will take about 17 hours. The airline plans to fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport over the Atlantic Ocean, the UK, southern Europe and central Asia, according to a memo to Cathay flight staff seen by Bloomberg News. The distance of 16,618 kilometres would surpass Singapore Airlines’ New York service, which takes about 17-and-a-half hours to cover 15,349km, FlightRadar24 data show. A spokeswoman for Cathay said Airbus SE’s A350-1000 is capable of operating the route, which would typically fly over the Arctic and through Russian airspace. Many Asian airlines are avoiding Russia due to the conflict in Ukraine. “We are always running contingency routings for potential events or scenarios,” the spokeswoman said. “The Transatlantic option relies on the facilitation of strong seasonal tailwinds at this time of the year in order for the flight time to be between 16 and 17 hours, thereby making it more favourable than the Transpacific route.” The airline said it is monitoring tailwinds every day, and that their benefits are diminishing. Jet streams tend to be stronger in the winter months. Cathay is seeking overflight permits to operate the service, which it said was normal for a new route. Before the pandemic, which has severely reduced its schedule, the carrier operated up to three round-trips between Hong Kong and JFK daily. Cathay’s most recent New York-Hong Kong flight stopped in Los Angeles before continuing over the Pacific and into the Asian financial hub without entering Russian airspace. The new, extended route would remove the need for a stopover, making it more cost-effective and competitive. Several airlines have plotted routes to avoid Russia, mostly between Asia and Europe. Japan Airlines rerouted its service from Tokyo’s Haneda airport to London’s Heathrow via Alaska and Canada rather than flying over Siberia. That added four-and-a-half hours to the 11-hour 55-minute journey.<br/>