Russia bans British airlines from its airspace

British airlines have been banned from landing at Russia’s airports and from crossing its airspace, the Russian civil aviation regulator has said.

Russia said the move was a response to “the unfriendly decisions by the UK aviation authorities”.

On Thursday, the UK banned Russia’s national airline Aeroflot from landing in Britain.

The measure was part of sanctions introduced following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told ITV: “I think that’s their retaliation for us yesterday banning Aeroflot from using and landing in the United Kingdom. That’s their tit for tat response.”

Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia said: “This measure was taken in accordance with the provisions of the Intergovernmental Air Services Agreement between Russia and the UK as a response to unfriendly decisions by the UK aviation authorities regarding the restriction on regular flights of aircraft owned, leased or operated by a person associated with Russia or registered in Russia.”

British Airways said in a statement it was notifying customers on cancelled services and would offer full refunds.

“We apologise for the inconvenience but this is clearly a matter beyond our control,” the airline said.

“We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

British Airways normally operates three flights per week each way between London and Moscow.

Following Russia’s announcement, Virgin Atlantic also said flight paths had been adjusted for some of its services between the UK, Pakistan and India. Flight times on these routes will be extended by between 15 minutes and an hour.

Virgin Atlantic apologised for the delays, adding: “The safety and security of our customers and people always comes first and we’re monitoring the situation in Ukraine and Russia extremely carefully following the escalation of conflict.”

Virgin Atlantic’s cargo-only flights between London Heathrow and Shanghai, which normally operate four times a week, have also been suspended.

Tracking data from Flightradar24 showed BA and Virgin Atlantic between Delhi, Islamabad and London are taking southern routes to avoid Russian airspace.

Data provider Cirium said Aeroflot and British Airways were the only carriers flying passengers between the UK and Russia over the past week.

In the past seven days, there had been a total of 24 passenger flights scheduled between the UK and Russia.

Aeroflot had 16 flights scheduled between London Heathrow and Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport, while British Airways had eight.

In January, there were 93 passenger flights scheduled between the UK and Russia.

And in a further blow to Aeroflot, football club Manchester United terminated their sponsorship deal with the Russian airline.

Aeroflot had been United’s official carrier since 2013 and the latest deal was due to run until 2023.

United renewed the deal in 2015, signing a five-year extension reported to be worth $40m (£29.9m).

Aeroflot has been running more passenger services between the UK and Russia than British Airways. So in that regard, it is more affected than its British counterpart.

However, Russia’s restrictions go further than the UK’s in that it is also banning British airlines from crossing its airspace.

That means re-routing some flights, adding time and fuel costs.

It is not just about passenger services. Virgin Atlantic is still not sure if it will be able to re-route its cargo-only flights to China.

One analyst told me that overall, the impact would be less than if it had happened before the pandemic. But they added that the issues could come where airlines had planned to restart routes, as the network returned to normal. BBC