Japanese airlines cancel flights to Europe as disruption grows

Japan’s two largest airlines have cancelled flights to Europe because of worries about flying over Russian airspace, in the latest disruption to aviation stemming from the conflict in Ukraine.

ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines are among the first airlines to suffer disruption on journeys from Asia to Europe.

Airlines typically travel over Russian airspace when flying between Europe and north-east Asia as the route known as the “Great Circle” offers the most direct journey.

ANA cancelled several flights for Thursday and Friday, and said those scheduled on or after Friday will be rerouted. “This will result in longer flight times, and there may be changes in departure and arrival times as well as delays,” it said.

JAL said it had cancelled flights after having considered various risks. The company added that it would announce a flight schedule for Friday and beyond “as soon as it is decided”.

European airlines also face long new routes to Asia, following a spate of retaliatory flight bans between Moscow and Europe, the US and Canada. Japan has so far resisted calls by the US to join such restrictions.

Avoiding Russian airspace adds more than 1,000 nautical miles and 150 minutes to a flight between Paris and Tokyo, and 855 nautical miles and 105 minutes between Amsterdam and Beijing, according to Eurocontrol, the European air traffic manager.
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Finnair on Monday warned that routes to Asia avoiding Russian airspace would be largely uneconomical, but has since said it would resume flights to Tokyo.

The disruption has so far been minimal because tight Covid-19 restrictions in many parts of Asia mean demand for travel is particularly low.

British Airways does not operate any flights between the UK and China and Japan, but would usually fly several routes a day.

But there are signs Japan is loosening its border rules after months of relentless criticism from universities and businesses. The government has said it will allow in 7,000 people a day from the current 5,000, and is exempting students from that count to allow for a larger intake to reduce a backlog of about 150,000 people.

Russian airline Aeroflot is also facing significant disruption on its international flights after being banned from European and North American airspace.

Several Aeroflot flights have had to make huge diversions, including a Sunday flight between Belgrade and Moscow that was forced to fly in a westerly arc over Kazakhstan to avoid European airspace and which took five hours and 45 minutes to complete, three hours longer than normal.