The airline Belavia will arrive in Prague for the last time today at 13:05. The Belarusian carrier has to stop traffic indefinitely, as well as flights over Czech territory. The Czech government decided on the stop today.

It is a reaction to Sunday’s hijacking of a Ryanair plane on the route from Athens to Vilnius. The army plane forced to fly close to the border with Lithuania to change direction and land in Minsk.

Belavia flies to Prague three times a week, mostly using the Embraer E195 on the route. Last year, in the first wave, it was practically the only airline that continued to fly even during the biggest lockdown. Prague Airport stated on its website that today’s flight will still be checked in.

Minister of Transport Karel Havlíček informed about the government’s decision. Other countries have already taken the same step, such as France, Lithuania, Sweden and Latvia, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. The Deputy Prime Minister stated that the suspension of the approved flight schedule will last until the investigation of the incident.

Many carriers have decided to fly around Belarus, yesterday Eurocontrol also recommended it to them. Smartwings Group spokeswoman Vladimíra Dufková told ČTK today that the CSA flight route to Moscow will run outside Belarus. The course of the flight can be monitored at Flightradar24.com. Already yesterday, the Smartwings plane between Tbilisi and Tampere used a different route than through Belarus.

The closing of airspace in the EU brings great complications to Belavia. It shows to leave from Minsk to Barcelona, ​​which already two hours circling over Belarus.

According to Russian agency Ria Novosti, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said today that Sunday’s procedure was completely legal and protected people in accordance with all international standards. In his first public appearance after the incident, Lukashenko also said, among other things, that those who wished bad things to Belarus had moved away from organizing the riots at a stage where they were trying to suffocate Belarus.

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