The airspace circuits of UA and RU vary depending on the route and the airline
The unprovoked attack on Ukraine has led to significant changes in flight habits. In a recent snapshot, EUROCONTROL examined what this meant for some Eastern European countries. Below are some of the effects of long-haul flights to Asia. The chart shows the distances flown to connect four European cities to Asian cities before and after the closure of Ukrainian airspace and Russian and Belarusian airspace for some airlines.
The extra flight time led some airlines to cancel the connection marked with an X on the pre-axis, for example Finnair has stopped flights from Helsinki to Beijing and SAS has stopped flights from Copenhagen to Tokyo. This decision is due to passenger and cargo demand, additional fuel costs, restrictions on schedules, staff and airports (gates and curfews) and, in some cases, the capacity of the aircraft available, taking into account the prevailing winds along the route.
In many cases, the connection frequency is reduced if it is not canceled. This is not shown in the chart, which instead focuses on flying the journey. It is clear from the examples presented here that connections from Helsinki are most affected, with additional distances of 1,400 km (Singapore) and almost 4,000 km (Seoul). In the context, 1400 km adds 1.25 hours to the flight and 4000 km adds 7 hours back and forth between Helsinki and Seoul. Helsinki <> Seoul used to be about 8.5 hours, but now it is 12 hours, so another 7 hours round trip is almost as much as the original one-way segment.
Further south and farther from the enclosed airspace, Copenhagen sees an additional distance of about 1,500 kilometers to Singapore and Shanghai. Beijing is operated by the Chinese cargo operator Air China Cargo, which is still able to fly Siberian routes, so there are no extra runways.
Frankfurt is so far south that there are no extra flights to India and Southeast Asia. For Lufthansa, Beijing is about 1,200 kilometers away, but Air China (passenger and cargo) is hardly affected.