Sanctions: Expansion of S7 Airlines in Germany at risk
The Russian airline is suspending all flights to Europe, including Berlin, Dusseldorf, Munich and Vienna, due to sanctions. The expansion of S7 in Germany is also at risk.
At first it only hits a few national connections. S7 Airlines decided to suspend all flights to Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don and Simferopol after the Russian attack on Ukraine and the closure of airspace in southern Russia on Thursday (February 24). A day later, the cancellations became more widespread.
On Friday (February 25), S7 Airlines announced that it would suspend all flights to Europe until March 13. The reason given by the largest private Russian airline was the “blocking of airspace by European countries”. Poland and the Czech Republic have announced that they will ban Russian aircraft from their airspace, while Great Britain has only blocked state-owned Aeroflot.
Big detours, danger of sanctions
This would mean that S7 would have to make very large detours and the corresponding additional costs if it wanted to continue to head for destinations in Western Europe. In addition, further flight bans and sanctions are threatened in Europe. S7 owner Vladislav Filev has various joint projects with the Russian state, especially in space.
Specifically, from February 26, S7 Airlines will cancel flights to Alicante, Barcelona, Bologna, Burgas, Larnaca, Milan, Nice, Paphos, Paris, Thessaloniki, Varna and Verona. But the connections to Germany and Austria are also affected. There the airline controls Berlin, Dusseldorf, Munich and Vienna.
Expansion plans in Germany
However, the anger between Western Europe and Russia over the Ukraine war is unlikely to have resolved itself by March 13th. And so S7 Airlines is threatened with an even longer flight stop. Therefore, for the time being, it is not selling tickets for Europe flights after March 13th.
Above all, the expansion planned for the summer in Germany is at risk. In addition to the previous destinations, the airline will actually start flights from Cologne, Hanover and Frankfurt to Moscow and from Frankfurt to Novosibirsk at the end of March and beginning of April. In addition, for December 2022 Innsbruck is seasonally in the flight plan again.