Well that escalated quickly…
In this post:
The EU’s sanctions on Belavia Belarusian Airlines
The European Union has imposed sanctions against any airline from Belarus. That primarily impacts Belavia Belarusian Airlines, which is the government owned airline of Belarus.
With these sanctions, Belavia won’t be able to operate to European Union airports, and also won’t be able to operate in European Union airspace. We’re progressively seeing these sanctions implemented by individual countries.
For example, yesterday a Belavia aircraft ended up operating a 2.5 hour flight to nowhere. The plane was supposed to fly from Minsk to Barcelona, but after takeoff the pilots learned that they wouldn’t be allowed to use French airspace.
All of this is in response to the government of Belarus essentially hijacking a flight between Greece and Lithuania in order to arrest an enemy of the corrupt government.
The EU has introduced sanctions against Belavia
Belavia cancels routes through October 30
Belavia has today announced that due to flight bans, the national airline will be canceling a dozen routes between May 27 and October 30, 2021. These include flights between Minsk and the following destinations:
- Amsterdam (AMS)
- Barcelona (BCN)
- Berlin (BER)
- Brussels (BRU)
- Frankfurt (FRA)
- Hannover (HAJ)
- Kaliningrad (KGD)
- Milan (MXP)
- Munich (MUC)
- Rome (FCO)
- Vienna (VIE)
- Warsaw (WAW)
Belavia’s canceled European routes
That covers the carrier’s entire network to the European Union. While Kaliningrad is in Russia, the reason for that cancelation is that the airport can’t practically be reached without using European Union airspace.
If you look at the schedule, you’ll see that Belavia has indeed zeroed out availability for most of these markets through the end of the summer schedule (which runs through late October).
What’s surprising about Belavia’s flight cancelations
It’s no surprise that Belavia is canceling flights to the European Union right now, given the sanctions in place. However, I’m kind of surprised that the airline is canceling a dozen routes for over five months, as that’s drastic.
Clearly the airline and government see no chance of there being a resolution here anytime soon, or else I can’t imagine the schedule would be canceled this far out. That suggests that this could get very ugly…
So many people won’t be able to enjoy Belavia’s inflight catering!
Bottom line
Belavia Belarusian Airlines has canceled a dozen routes (primarily to the European Union) all the way through October 30, 2021. That sure points to the Belarusian government expecting an extended battle here, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise when you look at the circumstances.
Are you surprised to see Belavia cancel flights all the way through October 30?
Ben, Belavia didn't flew to BRU, but to CRL.
Can Ben get Max to post a review for Pobeda? I did a search on Russia's LCC on this site, and there were only a few articles, one of which was about a chewing gum ban, and other of which was about the flight crew drawing a phallus with the flight path. I am now intrigued by what the traveler's airport and onboard experiences are like so I can compare it to the US3!
Karma's a b*tch
@AlohaDaveKennedy
No, I am definitely not involved with any Burn Loot Murder activists, Fentanyl-Floyd apologists and the likes. The US is solely responsible itself for allowing this to happen in their own land.
Hi Max:
Thought I recognized you - isn't your neighbor that Marxist BLM leader with the fancy homes? Shame about Belarus as I have met some citizens who seem to be quite nice folk.
To be fair, the US kind of did the same thing when they forced Bolivian Presidents Eva Morales' plane to land in Austria to (hopefully) detain Edward Snowden.
The EU is within full rights to impose sanctions, but the US Government should probably shut up about this. They do this kind of stuff all the time.
Not that it makes it right.
memo to Max (and other trolls):
You might want to try being a lot more subtle in your posts. Of course if your intent is to make us laugh a lot, then continue what you are doing right now; it's definitely working
Ben,
I see that there is a First Class on Belavia's E 195s. Is the catering you are showing for First or for Coach ?
By the way, what I find interesting is that they have to cancel the flights to Kaliningrad, which is a locked-in Russian enclave with only EU borders. I realize that Belarus and Russia are two different countries since the Soviet Union's implosion, but wars have started for less than that....
Ben,
I see that there is a First Class on Belavia's E 195s. Is the catering you are showing for First or for Coach ?
By the way, what I find interesting is that they have to cancel the flights to Kaliningrad, which is a locked-in Russian enclave with only EU borders. I realize that Belarus and Russia are two different countries since the Soviet Union's implosion, but wars have started for less than that. Imagine an acute crisis between Russia and the EU, the residents would be stuck there indefinitely (Like Gibraltar for decades...)
Max is clearly a russian troll
Heck, even their Ultra Low Cost Carrier Pobeda is better in Economy than the US3.
@david and the other haters:
Try Aeroflot in comparison to the Big US3 airlines. It is miles ahead in any way. Better seats, better service, better planes, better on time performance and beautiful, young, motivated flight attendants instead of old grumpy grannies who are so fat that they will block the aisle and prevent your escape in case of emergency.
Cancelling for months is a negotiation tactic - signalling that they're unafraid of a long term ban.
It doesn't mean that they expect it to be long. Though it certainly may be.
I think it's up to Russia. If they say the word this story's behind us. But they want to give the EU some pain first, so they'll get better terms.
"The West is in no way morally superior" Sure it is, and not only morally. Just ask the thousands of people risking life and limb to get there.
That meal still looks better than the nasty, foaming sandwich on UA.
@art @JBR - Normally, one says "Don't feed the trolls". But in this case, please feed them the some of the Belavia inflight catering!! Oh wait, they like that stuff......
Its always fun to see how many shills and bots turn up to defend dictatorships like russia and china when anything bad is said about those places
Regarding the Moscow propaganda troll above (Max), Ben should feel re-assured that his site is considered relevant enough to get hit by such trolls.
"Meanwhile the US is killing dozens of people with drones every day, not caring about any collateral damage. Most of them not even involved with the US in any way."
Thank you for contributing literally NOTHING to a conversation about Belarus.
Who knew that St. Petersburg trolls were operating on OMAAT? Wow.
They flew to Charleroi (CRL) in Belgium, not Brussels (BRU).
I am glad the EU is making a clear statement on what had happened. It's not acceptable for a country to basically force down an international airliner.
I wonder how this would potentially play out if the country was Russia or China. They've clearly got their political dissidents. I guess with Russia, they'll just poison them (which honestly they've gotten away with less penalties).
just out if curiosity, do you remeber what EU did in 2016 when Ukrain forced Belavia plane to land in Kiev, otherwise threatening to shoot it down? Ukranians did it to dertain a journalist who was publishing inconvenient info about their democratic goverment.
Belavia is just a victim of yet another political game, and the passangers ought to suffer.
Maybe the upcoming Obike Air you wrote about couple weeks ago can code share and operate the lost flights on Belavia's behalf!
For those airlines still not flying over Ukraine and now Belarus… Going on flight radar24.com… Shows some rather interesting flight paths taking place
Theyve also cancelled all flights to ARN, best I can tell
That is quite a phallic-looking meal
@rich
Meanwhile the US is killing dozens of people with drones every day, not caring about any collateral damage. Most of them not even involved with the US in any way.
In contrast to that, Russia is operating with a limited number of precision strikes that only affect the target persons. And these are mostly violent terrorists who have attacked Russia before.
The West is in no way morally superior, they just have the...
@rich
Meanwhile the US is killing dozens of people with drones every day, not caring about any collateral damage. Most of them not even involved with the US in any way.
In contrast to that, Russia is operating with a limited number of precision strikes that only affect the target persons. And these are mostly violent terrorists who have attacked Russia before.
The West is in no way morally superior, they just have the better public relations strategy (control of the propaganda media).
@Nelson: Interestingly, Belavia's ICAO code is BRU (and Brussels Airlines' is BEL). It looks as if these two were interchanged.
I didn't even knew that they flew to BRU.
@Lucky, you must be kidding that this kind of catering will be missed... :-)
The world has gotten to be more messy over the last few years. You have Russia going around the world killing people as they want, you got the never ending mideast issues, China isn't happy and doing whatever they want now in Hong Kong and eying Taiwan, and there are a lot of smaller countries with extreme dictators.
A dangerous time for travelers. Many seem to ignore potential political issues but often it is the...
The world has gotten to be more messy over the last few years. You have Russia going around the world killing people as they want, you got the never ending mideast issues, China isn't happy and doing whatever they want now in Hong Kong and eying Taiwan, and there are a lot of smaller countries with extreme dictators.
A dangerous time for travelers. Many seem to ignore potential political issues but often it is the innocent that can get stuck in weird situations. Look at all of the Australians citizens that still can't get back to their own country.
And of course, you still have COVID, and the potential of a country opening up and then suddenly closing and stranding you. Or a country being open but a lot of places inside not really open.
As some posts here have shown, rules are hardly clear and consistent, and even talking to a country directly, you can get differing opinions on rules/laws.
Until there are consequences for actions, things will continue to escalate, and of course if there are consequences, then things may get ugly as well.
Flight to Prague (Czechia) and Helsinki (Finland) have been canceled, too.
Actually impressive to see how extensive was their European network.
Flights to Ukraine are also canceled for that time...
Air Koryo or Europe.