Foreign companies spend more than $37 million every week flying around Russian airspace, the press service of the Russian Ministry of Transport reported.
“It is estimated that the additional costs of carriers in 19 countries (USA, Canada, UK, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Switzerland, Sweden) in terms of restrictions on the use of Russian airspace amount to more than $37.5 million weekly. As a result, this entails an increase in prices for tickets and transportation of goods, which inevitably falls on passengers and shippers,” the ministry said, TASS reports.
The Ministry of Transport noted that hundreds of foreign flights from Europe, Great Britain, Canada and the USA passed through the airspace of Russia every day towards the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. In addition, the number of such flights only grew: for example, in January-February, 31.4 thousand transit flights were performed, which is 21% more than in the same period last year.
“As a result of the forced retaliatory measure introduced against foreign carriers, inconvenience is caused primarily to the citizens of these countries. Alternative routes significantly increase the flight time – by almost 2 hours. This entails an increase in the cost of transportation, primarily due to an increase in the amount of fuel used,” concluded Vitaly Savelyev, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation.
Recall that the head of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, announced the complete closure of the airspace of the EU countries for Russian aircraft in connection with a special military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine.