Nearly 10 months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the economic pressure is building on airlines to reopen Russian airspace, which since late February has been mostly closed to Western aviation.  The head of the global airline body IATA, Willie Walsh, told reporters at Geneva that “from an ideological point of view … we should be looking to reopen Russian airspace to have it accessible to all airlines to transit through the traditional Siberian flights so that Europe can access Asia in the most efficient way.”

The closure of Russian airspace was one of the earliest substantial punitive measures taken by Western countries against Russia following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. While the EU closed its airspace to Russian aircraft to sanction Moscow financially — and Russian airlines like the state-backed Aeroflot have suffered correspondingly — it is mainly European airlines that have shouldered the unanticipated economic burden as international flight routes have had to be shifted, sometimes dramatically.  

While Mr. Walsh, who previously led British Airways, stopped short of calling for Russian airspace to be reopened while the war is under way, he warned about the crowding of European skies due to commercial flight diversions and route changes. “If you look at the closure of Ukrainian airspace, Russian airspace, and other parts of the world, the amount of traffic that’s flowing through Europe has increased over certain routes, and that’s not sustainable.”

It was not immediately clear if Mr. Walsh meant that the increased number of planes over European skies could compromise safety,  but the website Flightglobal reported that in October the head of Eurocontrol, Eamonn Brennam, said that the closure of Russian airspace was creating congestion above Europe because “everybody is moving south.” 

In recent weeks, the Telegraph reported, unidentified airlines on the Continent have started lobbying Brussels to review the Russian airspace ban. The economic costs have been building for some time, chiefly because most flights that would normally have flown through Russian airspace presently cannot. A flight from Brussels or Amsterdam that prior to February would soar over Siberia now has to either fly over Turkey and the Middle East, or over the North Pole. That takes more time and fuel, and costs both airlines and passengers more money. 

Like virtually all European airlines, Finnair has ceased using both Russian and Ukrainian airspace. A representative of the airline told this correspondent over the summer that “the Russian airspace closure has major impacts on Finnair” and that “the cornerstone of our strategy used to be the short northern route from Helsinki to the North Asian megacities.” Last month, the airline announced that it would have to cut approximately 150 jobs that were based in Finland, citing “dramatic changes in Finnair’s operating environment caused by the closure of Russian airspace.”

For a flight between Helsinki and Tokyo, an extra five hours is the new normal. Due to the need to avoid Russian overflights, some British Airways flights are currently “being delayed by up to four hours,” the Telegraph also reported. Yet not every airline has stopped flying above Russia’s vast airspace, which extends over 11 time zones. Dubai-based Emirates is one example.  Another is Turkish Airlines, which along with Air Canada and United is part of the Star Alliance, and has a fairly full roster of flights between Russian cities and destinations in Turkey. 

The Western ban could eventually hand a competitive advantage to China, particularly if Beijing continues to ease some of its coronavirus restrictions and as more Chinese passengers take to the skies, including those over Russia, as a result. Even in that arena, though, some marketplace battles are shaping up. For example the founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways, Sir Richard Branson, has supported a ban on all Chinese airlines that arrive in the United Kingdom via Russian airspace. 

There is a political as well as commercial incentive for backing such a ban. That is because without one, Russia stands to rake in robust overflight charges from China — the UN has estimated that in 2019 alone, Moscow earned $1.7 billion in such fees. 

“The issue is that if Russian airspace is open to some but not all, you have to question why it is closed to some but not all,” Mr. Walsh also said, adding, “that’s the debate that we are going to have to have as we go through 2023.”