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Qantas’ Kangaroo Flights from Darwin to London would be severely affected if Russia decides to bar Australian carriers from its skies.
It comes as a series of tit-for-tat airspace bans, relating to the invasion of Ukraine, has seen Russia block flights from carriers based in the UK, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic.
While neither Australia nor Russia has implemented restrictions, tensions are likely to be inflamed with Prime Minister Scott Morrison supporting action to kick the country out of the SWIFT international payment system, rubber-stamped by the US on Sunday.
The iconic QF1 flights already avoid Ukrainian airspace, however, do fly over Mongolia and then into Russia, Estonia, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Global reciprocal airspace bans began with the UK banning all Russian carriers and business jets carrying high-profile Russian nationals, from its skies.
The move was followed by similar action from Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic before Russia hit back with reciprocal action. Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia on Saturday also said they would ban Russian flights.
“We invite all EU countries to do the same,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas tweeted. “There is no place for planes of the aggressor state in democratic skies.”
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa quoted Kallas’ tweet, adding, “Slovenia will do the same” before Latvia said its ban would be ratified at its next cabinet meeting.
22:00 UTC — This is currently the airspace unavailable to Russian flights. Additional closures are expected. https://t.co/3GtCYRmZUQ pic.twitter.com/SF1BLSltdS
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) February 26, 2022
This week, World of Aviation reported how all flights by civil aircraft were restricted inside Ukraine due to safety concerns.
As of 3:15 UTC time on Thursday, Ukraine airspace was “completely empty”, according to tracking site Flightradar24 after airlines scrambled to find alternate routes to dodge the war-torn nation.
Flights are also restricted within cities of Ukraine such as Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Odesa, Simferopol FIR, Kyiv UIR.
The website Safe Airspace provides conflict zone and risk database warnings, birthed from the Malaysian Airlines MH17 aircraft disaster when operators had not been sufficiently warned.
On Thursday it said, “Regardless of the actual movements of Russian forces into Ukraine, the level of tension and uncertainty in Ukraine is now extreme.
“This itself gives rise to significant risk to civil aviation. For this reason, and based on OPSGROUP member discussions, we assess Ukraine as Level 1 – Do Not Fly.”
On Wednesday, the US Federal Aviation Administration banned all US operators from overflying the eastern part of Dnipro, among other states which have enforced similar prohibitions.
franz chong
says:another way that avoids the path is flying in the direction of Colombo,Male and all of Africa till one hits Portugal/Spain and parts of France and approaching London that way currently.what will happen once via Perth returns is another story but that could do a path to Nairobi then all of Africa and then the same as mentioned. What Qantas has overlooked under different circumstances is from Sydney operating a straight through to LA same plane onto London QF1/QF2(many of us might remember the Riots in Singapore and Malaysia in the 60s)that left them scrambling to find new routes for the Sydney to London services.LA is one option as is Vancouver. a crazy path option c that might well work is mexico city.