The vast majority of European airspace will be off-limits to Russian flights in the coming days as Ukraine’s allies forge a sweeping no-fly zone against Vladimir Putin’s regime.
Russian airlines are already barred from their standard routes to virtually all of Europe due to a curtain of bans imposed by eastern European countries this week.
Diversions to open countries through the Baltic Sea are set to be blocked off after Sweden, Germany and Denmark pledged similar measures on Sunday morning.
Russian planes desperate to reach the West will instead be forced to take a long detour south over Turkey, making many commercial routes unviable.
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Only the tiny Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland, is likely to remain accessible via a longer route over international waters between Estonia and Finland.
Some 20 have banned or are set to ban Russian airlines from their airspace, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announcing an EU-wide ban on all Russian-owned aircraft later on Sunday.
Many countries, including Russia’s neighbours Latvia and Estonia, are blacklisting Russian airlines, meaning flights registered to airlines from other nations can still enter their airspace.
Others, including Finland, which shares the longest border with Russia in Europe, and Denmark, say they are banning ‘all Russian air traffic’.
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The UK and Ireland have gone one step further by forbidding any Russian-owned planes from entering their airspace, including private jets.
Announcing Estonia’s ban on Saturday, the country’s prime minister Kaja Kallas said: ‘There is no place for planes of the aggressor state in democratic skies.’
A number of European airlines have also suspended flights to Russia for at least a week.
Germany’s flag carrier, Lufthansa, said it will not ‘use Russian airspace for the next seven days due to the current and emerging regulatory situation’.
KLM, the Dutch flag carrier, said it ‘can no longer guarantee that flights to Russia can return safely’ as sanctions stopped them sending spare aircraft parts to the country.
Russia has retaliated by banning flights from the countries which have blacklisted its planes, including the UK.
But its businesses have already taken a pummelling from the measures and flight bans are likely to add hundreds of millions to their losses.
Shares in Russia’s state-owned flag carrier airline, Aeroflot, have nearly halved in value over the last week, and its £40 million sponsorship deal with Manchester United was scrapped this weekend.
There is now growing momentum for an EU-wide no-fly zone for Russian airlines backed by ministers from Germany, Austria and Denmark.
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