More Eastern European countries have announced that they will close their airspaces to Russian airlines and aircraft operators.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom became the first European nation (besides Ukraine) to ban Russian airlines. Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria followed suit on Friday.
Now, the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have followed and will no longer allow Russian operators to pass through their airspace, resulting in long detours if Russian airlines plan to continue serving Western European destinations. S7 Airlines has cancelled all flights to its European destinations.
“Estonia is banning Russian airlines from our airspace. We invite all EU countries to do the same.“, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said on Saturday afternoon.
Slovenia and Romania have also confirmed airspace bans for Russian operators on Saturday.
After Russia launched military attacks on Ukraine on Thursday morning, the European Union announced a set of sanctions that include the ban of aircraft and spare parts exports to Russia.
Jakob Wert is an aviation journalist from Germany. He built up the website IFN.news and is the Editor-In-Chief of International Flight Network.
