BA has been banned from overflying Russia, is QF next?

[openseat]

I came across this news story on BBC:

Russia bans British airlines from its airspace​

I am beginning to think that Qantas may be caught up in this as Putin's war of aggression on Ukraine continues. I've just noticed that QF1 is flying over Russia at the moment and wonder what other options for routing to Europe will be for QF.

 

[ChrisMars]

The few latest BA11/BA12 flights already take a south path, avoiding Russia air space normally used. Can guess Qantas will do the same if needed.
It would quite entertaining hearing Scot banning Russia's airplan from using Australian's airspace though.

 

[mviy]

QF2, QF9 and QF10 are flying over Russia as well. It’s both directions of the flights between DRW and LHR.

If they have to take a longer route they will need to carry more fuel and offset this by saving weight in other areas e.g. passengers and/or cargo.

 

[dajop]

The other option (from 3 March) is to accelerate the return to PER, as from memory PER-LHR does not go over Russia.

 

[defurax]

QF2, QF9 and QF10 are flying over Russia as well. It’s both directions of the flights between DRW and LHR.

If they have to take a longer route they will need to carry more fuel and offset this by saving weight in other areas e.g. passengers and/or cargo.

Looking at GCMAP, PER-LHR is 9,009 miles while tracking DRW-LHR passing over Turkey is 8,958 miles. Not sure if other factors like wind are very different on both routing, but as absolute distance it's shorter.

 

[mviy]

For PER-LHR I think in one of the directions due to wind factors they had to have a lighter load. The 787 is used for shorter routes as well so it needs to have enough seats to make e.g. flights to LAX work.

Lengthening the distance to travel and reducing the number of passengers does impact the economics of the flight. It may still be profitable, but probably not as profitable to have a longer DRW-LHR flight than currently.

DRW has a smaller population than PER though so there’s probably less people booking just the DRW-LHR leg than would book just PER-LHR.

 

[jb747]

BA was banned as a response to the UK banning the Russian airlines. We haven't done that yet, as far as I know, not that it would have much effect on them.

 

[defurax]

Paying overflight fees may become complicated though if Russian banks are eventually banned from using SWIFT. But I'm sure there's a way, Iran seems to get paid overflight fees even with all the sanctions, but maybe not in USD.

 

[kelvedon]

BA was banned as a response to the UK banning the Russian airlines. We haven't done that yet, as far as I know, not that it would have much effect on them.

So how would BA fly to Japan now ?

 

[bam71]

So how would BA fly to Japan now ?

One stop via JNB

 

[dajop]

So how would BA fly to Japan now ?

They don't fly to Japan right now anyway, only a codeshare on JL.

 

[Franky]

They don't fly to Japan right now anyway, only a codeshare on JL.

And what route would JL take then, or are they able to overfly Russia?...

 

[dajop]

And what route would JL take then, or are they able to overfly Russia?...

I guess that would depend on the Japanese government position.

 

[Mattg]

If BA (or VS) were currently flying to places like Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong or Seoul, this would severely affect their operations. But I don't think either of these airlines are currently flying to any of those places anyway - at least, not with passengers. Flights to Bangkok or Singapore aren't as affected as they fly further south anyway.

I think the airline that would be most "screwed" if Russian overflights were banned would be Finnair.

 

[jb747]

So how would BA fly to Japan now ?

When I said it wouldn’t have any effect, I meant any restrictions our government might impose. It makes a huge difference to anything to Korea or Japan. Perhaps Alaska will become the new Singapore/Dubai.

 

[Cheatah]

JB - what discretion would a Captain have in situations like this? While QF would never knowingly fly over dangerous territory this is a unique situation - as mentioned on the other thread Russia could conceivably force a western aircraft to land and check/confirm paperwork etc as an act of intimidation.

Does a QF Captain have the authority to reject the proposed flight plan, and in this example, route the QF1 over the middle east etc? Rather than flying over Russia? Extra flight time, fuel etc etc - would their be a "please explain" from senior management?

 

[HappyFlyerFamily]

Paying overflight fees may become complicated though if Russian banks are eventually banned from using SWIFT. But I'm sure there's a way, Iran seems to get paid overflight fees even with all the sanctions, but maybe not in USD.

Crypto?!

 

[ChrisMars]

Crypto?!

SPFS. A few foreign banks are connected to it, those will get busy very soon.

 

[jrfsp]

I wonder if any pax have got nervous and swapped to another airline?
I doubt 99% would even know....until they looked at the moving map.

 

[madrooster]

I think the airline that would be most "screwed" if Russian overflights were banned would be Finnair.

They'd be finnished... well not really. AY only really flies to NRT, KIX and ICN at the moment and they're mostly not daily.