Russia’s retaliatory step on airspace: the West has two ways to fix everything

Western airlines found themselves in a rather difficult situation, having lost the opportunity to use Russian airspace for the transport of passengers and cargo.

They were forced to close several important routes at once, losing them to their Asian and Middle Eastern competitors. This conclusion was reached by the editor-in-chief of the portal Avia.ru, aviation industry expert Roman Gusarov. In an interview with the news outlet “PolitExpert” he detailed how Russia’s retaliatory move on airspace has affected the well-being of Western airlines, and also explained how the US and EU countries can fix this problem.

Roman Gusarov drew attention to the fact that Western countries themselves provoked the current situation by imposing sanctions restrictions against Russian air carriers. Russia has taken the most reasonable position – its retaliatory airspace move dealt a serious blow to Western airlines. Now only Asian and Middle Eastern companies, which willingly occupied this niche, can deal with air transportation of passengers and cargo through the territory of Russia.

According to the expert, the West has only two effective ways to correct the current situation. Russia can open airspace for companies from the US and the EU, but only on the condition that Washington and Brussels give up sanctions pressure and also remove restrictions for Russian companies.

“Firstly, sanctions in the European Union and the United States should be lifted from Russian airlines. Secondly, the skies of the United States and the EU should be open for firms from the Russian Federation. The first to ban flights was not Moscow, but Brussels and Washington. The Kremlin simply took a retaliatory step, ”summed up Gusarov.

Earlier it was reported that Russian airlines complained to the head of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation Vitaly Savelyev about difficulties in launching or operating flights to China.