Some Suspend Flights Temporarily
Russia has closed its airspace to carriers from more than 30 nations, including Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and Canada, responding to their move to close their respective airspaces to Russian aircraft.
As a result, European airlines are either canceling flights to and from Incheon or using routes that bypass Russia, affecting domestic consumers.
Industry insiders said on March 1 that Finnish airline Finn Air canceled all flights between Helsinki and Incheon until March 6. Finn Air is pondering whether to extend the cancellation or use a bypass route. KLM of the Netherlands also temporarily suspended its service to Korea. Lufthansa of Germany operates a bypass route between Munich and Incheon through Turkey and Kazakhstan without passing through Russian airspace. Air France also plans to operate a detour route between Paris and Incheon via Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The bypass route takes more than two hours than the existing route through Russia.
Korea is not currently subject to Russian airspace control. However, as the Korean government has decided to participate in economic sanctions against Russia, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines are preparing detour routes because they do not know when the Russian side will close its airspace. The most likely way is to go through southern Russia. In this case, the operating time is expected to increase by more than two and a half hours. If Russian airspace is closed, cargo plane operations will inevitably be disrupted because many of the cargo planes to Europe land once in Moscow. In the case of Korean Air, Russia is a stopover for 70 percent to 80 percent of its cargoes.
Meanwhile, the Korea International Trade Association said payment issues accounted for 58.7 percent of the complaints filed by Korean companies in connection with the Ukrainian crisis. They were followed by logistics problems (31.2 percent) and lack of information (7.3 percent).