Belarusian national carrier Belavia is expanding its fleet with Airbus A330s, despite sanctions. How did the airline do this? Well, it bought planes from a Jordanian-Syrian businessman, from an airline registered in Gambia, which purchased the planes in a Turkish bankruptcy sale several years ago… as one does.
Continue reading: Sanctioned Belavia Acquires A330s Smuggled By Fake Gambian Airline
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
One is guessing that we are unlikely to see a flight experience review anytime soon then Ben? …. 🙂
Ukraine ! Ukraine ! Jedeee. Give me money. That’s Mr Vice President and no talk to the EU whatever that is Europe within Europe , -TDS
Russia and Belarus are murdering, imprisoning and forcing into exile journalists, opposition members and government critics. They are the terrorists not Ukraine. Russia and Belarus do not have a free press. Ukraine does. Russia and Belarus do not have free elections. Ukraine does. Russia invaded Ukraine and is killing women and children nevermind their own young men. What a disgusting comment.
Ukrainian terrorists shot down civilian airliners during Obama. Ukraine is doing plenty of murdering and looting. Both sides are bad. What’s with the hostility boys ?
Sounds quite similar to how Iranian airlines acquired aircraft. Some Onur Air aircraft later ended up in Iranian fleets.
https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Onur-Air
Check out the historical fleet section on PlaneSpotters.net. It's quite colorful.
As someone who's done a serious investigation into the story (about 0.05 man-hours or ~2 mins) around March, when it was first circulated by Reuters -- me thinks the original plan was for Syria to get all 4 planes (the three A330s in question, plus the A320 Ben mentioned).
Magic, yeah, clearly a shell, owned three A330s and that one A320 (C5-TAA under Magic, YK-BAC under Cham). On 17-22 Aug of 2024 all 4 got ferried to Minsk. A320 left several days later and joined Cham, A330s never did. Perhaps a delay occurred, or perhaps the A330s needed work (which theoretically can be done in Minsk, given that Russia can supply A330 parts and expertise). My guess is that the plan to smuggle via Minsk was devised under Assad, but with him gone relatively shortly thereafter, nobody in Syria needed the planes any longer. They sat in Minsk until Belavia figured we may as well pick them up.
Belavia didn't use long-haul planes pre-covid or pre-invasion, and it certainly doesn't need them now, and definitely not from Airbus. If they did need additional planes, I'm sure they can relatively easily smuggle in some 737-800s or older Embraers (they've operated both types for like 15 years) and get them airworthy within days/weeks, not over a year/close to two years later + train pilots/crew, plus fix an old aircraft they've never seen. They probs just found themselves sitting on free, illiquid A330 and went for it.
Absolutely no idea how they'll fill up three massive planes given their current route network.
@D3SWI33 those were Russian-backed separatists, you nonce. Stop trying to correct people who are smarter and better than you. Stick to YouTube.
Ben,
The word "smuggled" its not correct.
Since smuggle means "move goods illegally into or out of a country".
Belavia did not obtain the aircraft illegally.
Belavia as an airline sanctioned by other countries does not mean necessarily doing something illegal, it just mean that the countries that choose to sanction applies such measure for geopolitical convenience.
Belavia has a code share agreement with Nordwind Airlines,
there´s got expectations on this deal with the traffic increase,
Most likely the flight will operate to the Far East, Thailand, Turkey & Egypt,
most routes are still under evaluation.
Since You like to research this subject, You should understand that the tendency and projections of the airlines in this part of the world, the focus its in India and the Far East, Its where its the population, the wealth and the sustainable grow is. Its not Europe.
Thanks for Your attention.
A great and well informed comment. I agree that articles like this are written from a single prospective and does not take into account the wording and intentions of the airline.
A great and well informed comment. I agree that articles like this are written from a single prospective and does not take into account the wording and intentions of the airline.
Maybe we'll see these aircraft on 'loan' to Russian carriers, or could they just be parted out given their 'poor' condition ? Although I"m not sure how many A330's are currently operating in Russia or if there's much commonality with other Airbus aircraft (A320, A340) ..
As if it's worth anything, why not go after freezing that questionable businessman's assets & sanctioning him ? As well as any foreign aid to The Gambia ...
Unfortunately, sanctions are not internationally binding, unless they were endorsed by the UN Security Council, which is not the case for Belarus.
Lots of demand from the Belarus government to import "migrants" from Afghanistan, Somalia etc to throw over the border into the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus%E2%80%93European_Union_border_crisis
People are so stupid to think 🙂 have been in the middle aviation for 15 years 🙂 CNN and BBC will tell "the truth" being sanctioned means being a strong competitor and that's it.
First go and check 🙂 visit the country and later write ur comments. The problem is u r easily fooled 🙂 and ur brain is so narrow as the rest
First go and check 🙂 visit the country and later write ur comments. The problem is u r easily fooled 🙂 and ur brain is so narrow as the rest
Maidan... Free electionfree press have u seen the reality of freedom at least check from people. And Belarus is murdering seriously