United States Adds Russia Flight Ban

The United States is finally adding a Russian flight ban.

During Tuesday night's State of the Union, President Biden announced that the United States will ban Russian aircraft from its airspace. He explained.

“Tonight I’m announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American airspace to all Russian flights, further isolating Russia and adding additional squeeze on their economy.”

The European Union and Canada are among the countries that have banned Russian airlines from their airspace. This doesn't just apply for flights with a destination in these countries, but also allows you to fly over them. Russian airlines have been challenged to operate flights to many destinations.

Most of the bans have been made reciprocated, meaning that countries banning Russia from their airspace are also banned from Russian airspace. I would expect the same for the United States.

What are the implications of this flight ban?

What is the significance of the flight ban?

• Russian airlines flying to the United States (in particular Aeroflot) have already largely suspended service, given that flying to the United States without using Canadian or European Union airspace is challenging
• More significant perhaps is that private Russian aircraft can’t fly to the United States; then again, if you’re a Russian billionaire, you could get around this by simply flying to another country and then taking a non-Russian private jet from there
• Since Russia will no doubt make this reciprocal, an equally big implication is that US airlines won’t be able to use Russian airspace; until yesterday, United Airlines was using Russian airspace for its flights to India (which was controversial)

Bottom line

The United States will be banning aircraft from Russia. Dozens of countries have introduced similar bans in the past few days. Russia will almost certainly make this reciprocate, as it has done with all countries up to now.

It will be interesting to see how long all of these bans last, since widespread airspace restrictions will change global aviation.

What do you think about the US banning Russian aircraft?