Aeroflot Flight To New York Turns Around Mid-Flight

The world is getting smaller for Russian state-owned airline Aeroflot, and that was reflected in Sunday's flight from Moscow to New York.

Aeroflot operates eight hour flight to nowhere

The European Union and Canada banned Russian airlines from using their airspace. The United States hasn't yet banned Aeroflot, but it looks like they may be canceling flights due to lack of feasible routes.

This was most evident on Aeroflot 124 from Moscow (SVO) to New York (JFK) on Sunday, February 27, 2022. The flight was supposed to depart at 2:40PM and arrive at 5:20PM, and was operated by a Boeing 777-300ER with the registration code VP-BHA.

The flight took off roughly on time, and continued a standard northerly route for around four hours, over Sweden and Finland.

The news that the EU and Canada are banning Aeroflot caused the operations people to cut their losses and have the flight back to base. If the plane didn't have enough fuel to land in New York, where would it go to refuel?

Aeroflot operated a flight to nowhere. The standard route would have looked like this.

Aeroflot accidentally granted permission to use Canadian airspace

On Sunday morning, Aeroflot was scheduled to leave Moscow at 7:10AM and arrive in Miami at 11:50AM. The flight used an A350-900, which was banned in Canada and the European Union.

The return flight was supposed to be different. The flight from Miami to Moscow was scheduled to leave at 1:45PM and arrive at 8:35AM on Monday. Canada and the European Union put in place new restrictions before the flight left Miami.

If you look at the flight path, you can see that the flight still used Canadian airspace.

What happened? Since the plane was returning to base, it would be reasonable for Canada to allow this as a one-time exception. This was a mistake on the part of the controller, who accidentally granted the plane permission to use Canadian airspace.

“This evening, NAV Canada mistakenly permitted a banned aircraft into Canadian airspace. This shouldn’t have happened.”

The problem seemed to have been fixed. The plane had to go around Canada because it was a bit behind.

Bottom line

Aeroflot is the most global of those airlines. Aeroflot was forced to change its flight between Moscow and New York on Sunday because of new airspace restrictions from the European Union and Canada.

The flight from Miami was accidentally given permission to use Canadian airspace, while the flight from Punta Cana had a rather circuitous route back to base.

What do you think about the flight routes?