Airlines from China, the UAE, Qatar, India, and the Philippines continue to fly in transit through Russian airspace - Rosaviatsia

MOSCOW. June 21 (Interfax) - Airlines from China, the UAE, Qatar, India and the Philippines continue to operate transit flights through Russian airspace, "causing irritation" among Western carriers, Lev Kosinov, the Federal Air Transport Agency's head of the department for regulation of transportation and international activities, said.

The most optimal and convenient international air corridors pass through Russia, which make it possible to reduce flight time and thereby save airline resources, Kosinov said at a round table in the Federation Council on Friday. These are trans-Siberian, trans-Asian, transpolar, trans-eastern and cross-polar routes. However, after the introduction of anti-Russian sanctions in 2022, "the countries of the collective West and the states that have joined them" are forced to fly around Russian airspace, Kosinov said.

"Accordingly, the airlines of these countries incur increased financial costs. For example, the non-use of the cross-polar route system by American airlines increases flight time over two hours and leads to additional costs of about $40 thousand per flight. Bypassing the trans-East Asian or The trans-Asian route system increases flight time by an hour and-a-half, depending on point of departure and destination," he said.

"At the same time, airlines that use Russian airspace, namely airlines from China, the UAE, Qatar, India, and the Philippines, have a significant competitive advantage, which irritates their partners in the West," he said.

The dynamics of the intensity of use of Russian airspace from 2016 to 2019 showed stable growth; "we grew 8% per year," Kosinov said. When the pandemic hit in 2020, there was a decrease in flight intensity to the 2016 level. There was 20% growth in 2021, when Covid restrictions began to be lifted.

The number of transit flights through Russian airspace decreased 59% in 2022 versus the previous year to 79,652, former head of the Federal Air Transport Agency Alexander Neradko said. Russia has collected royalties from foreign carriers for the use of these routes since the 1970s. Aeroflot traditionally received most of them. Some estimates put the amounts received at up to hundreds of millions of dollars per year.