Since the invasion of Ukraine, Western companies can no longer fly over Russia. There is therefore a big hole on the map between Europe and Asia, with the obligation to bypass the largest country in the world. After almost three years of this regime, the show Tout un monde lifts the veil on the multiple consequences of this remodeling of the sky.
The air transport map has changed a lot since February 2022 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. European countries having banned their airspace to Russian planes, Moscow in retaliation banned planes from most Western airlines from crossing its immense territory. From the simple increase in flight duration to the outright elimination of certain connections, including the problem of biased competition on certain routes, the consequences of this reshuffling of the skies are beginning to appear clearly.
The direct Zurich – Tokyo flight of the Swiss company, for example, passed through Siberia before 2022. “Now, on the way out, we go much further south. We will fly over Romania, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, China and South Korea before arriving in Japan,” Swiss captain Luc Wolfensberger, who pilots one of the company’s 12 Boeing 777s, explained Monday in the show Tout un monde. Lengthened by around 20%, the flight time increased from around 10:30 to 12:30, the pilot continues.
For a pilot, these three extra hours are very significant. We are also reaching the limits for economy class passengers.
On the way back, it’s worse. For reasons of wind direction, in particular, the planes must take an even different route, which this time goes very north, via the Bering Strait, northern Greenland then Norway. “We’re almost making a trip around the world! Here, we’re talking about a flight time that went from approximately 11:30 hours to 2:30 hours. For a pilot, these three extra hours are very significant. We’re also reaching the limits for the passengers in economy class”, underlines Luc Wolfensberger.
Longer, more expensive, more polluting
As travel time increases, fuel consumption also increases by the same proportions, as do CO2 emissions. Enough to spend, on a one-way flight, up to fifteen tonnes of additional kerosene, estimates the pilot. For companies, flying to these destinations “costs much more” than before, explained in 2023 the general director of the Air France-KLM group Benjamin Smith, knowing that the cost of fuel represents around a quarter of the ticket price. of plane.
In addition to the additional fuel, we must also take into account the higher depreciation and lower availability of the fleet due to the longer use of the aircraft, the cost of reinforcing the crews or even the overflight rights of the different countries which ‘add up on longer routes. The total additional cost could represent 300 euros on a ticket paid for 1,500 euros, estimates journalist and aeronautics expert Michel Polacco, for whom “this additional cost is necessarily reflected in the price of the ticket that passengers pay”.
Shared bill
“The price of the ticket remains fixed according to supply and demand, in addition to various factors,” explains Luc Wolfensberger. “The price has certainly increased […]but the entirety is not passed on to the price of the ticket”, says the Swiss pilot. According to the company, the increase in the bill has also not worsened the attendance of the lines concerned. After the Covid pandemic -19, demand is even increasing.
>> Read about it: Air travel almost back to pre-Covid levels, despite climate crisis
Prohibited or dangerous overflights penalized operations so much that flights were no longer profitable if they were not full
This positive observation cannot, however, be generalized. “I know that companies have decided to cancel certain routes or reduce their frequencies, for example to China, because prohibited or dangerous overflights penalized operations so much that flights were no longer profitable if they were not not full”, indicates Michel Polacco for his part. British Airways, for example, has just suspend your line between London and Beijing; Virgin Atlantic, she stop flying to Shanghai.
Distortion of competition denounced
The increase in costs is all the more difficult to manage as the airline market between Europe and Asia has been particularly competitive for several years. In addition to the companies established at both ends of these routes (European and Far Eastern), the Gulf companies and those from South-East Asia are also very active on this market, via a stopover in their country of origin. ‘origin.
And not all carriers are impacted in the same way by post-February 2022: since they are not in conflict with Moscow, Chinese companies can, for example, continue to fly over Russia; same thing for Turkish or Gulf companies, which take advantage of it for their flights to North America. A distortion of competition already pointed out by Carsten Spohr, the boss of the German airline group Lufthansa, of which Swiss is a part.
The conflagration in the Middle East further complicates the situation
A closed Siberian road also means more planes over the Near and Middle East. The recent conflagration in these regions has therefore further complicated things [lire encadré]. As flights over Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Iran have become dangerous, most companies are forced to use increasingly restricted and circuitous air routes to reach East Asia, via the Turkey then Iraq and the Persian Gulf for example.
We must not forget that for decades, we did not go through Russia.
All these constraints “roughly represent some 5 to 10% of the turnover of global air traffic, which is gigantic when we know that the profit margin of companies is of the order of 1 to 2%”, highlights Michael Polacco. But not enough, however, to go so far as to threaten the survival of the main airlines.
“We must not forget that for decades [notamment durant la Guerre froide, NDLR]we did not go through Russia. And there were also problems in the Middle East during that period. I do not think that the companies can be seriously penalized in the long term,” analyzes the specialist, while specifying that certain medium-haul companies which had specialized in flights to these regions could still have major difficulties.
>> Also consult our day-to-day monitoring of the war in Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky welcomes Maia Sandu’s victory in Moldova and calls for a “united Europe”
Radio subject: Cédric Guigon
Adaptation web: Vincent Cherpillod
