Airlines flying around Belarus face delays, higher fuel burn

Belarus may have become increasingly isolated with every year that dictator Alexander Lukashenko clings to power. But the country has remained an important fly-over territory for airliners, particularly since parts of neighboring Ukraine were deemed unsafe to traverse in the wake of the 2014 downing of a Malaysian Airlines aircraft. About 400 flights a day use Belarus airspace, including about 300 that pass over without landing, according to Eurocontrol, which is responsible for managing Europe’s airspace. Now European airlines have begun skirting around Belarus at the directive of European Union leaders. The move follows international furor over the interception on May 23 of a Ryanair jetliner, which was forced to land in Minsk en route from Greece to Lithuania so that authorities could arrest a dissident Belarusian journalist who was on board. On Tuesday, long-haul airliners belonging to Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and British Airways began flying over Latvia instead of the traditional route over Belarus, adding extra distance and time to the flights. Most carriers overflying Belarus will be re-routed through the Baltic states, Eurocontrol said, which might add about 40 nautical miles to their journeys. The airspace over Belarus is part of a major through-way for flights between Asia and Europe. The country charges airlines between E245 for an Airbus SE A320 jet to as much as E770 for an A380 super-jumbo to use their airspace, Eurocontrol said. In 2019, Eurocontrol collected E85m in air navigation charges on behalf of Belarus, it said. Barring overflight by European airlines may deprive Belarus of as much as half of its air transit fees, said Oleksandr Laneckij of aviation consultancy Friendly Avia Support.<br/>