Foreign companies have started to refuse to fly to Russia
27 December 2024 15:15
Several foreign airlines have already refused to fly to a number of Russian cities due to serious security risks, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports citing Russian media.
Thus, the Azerbaijani national carrier Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL ) has decided to cancel flights to seven Russian cities. Starting from December 28, 2024, the company will stop flights from Baku to Mineralnye Vody, Sochi, Volgograd, Ufa, Samara, Grozny, and Makhachkala.
This decision was made due to
“the results of the preliminary investigation of the Embraer 190 crash and possible risks to flight safety,”
the carrier said in a statement. No flights are planned to resume until a full investigation into the causes of the crash is completed. However, the company will continue to fly to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Astrakhan, Kazan, and Novosibirsk.
Kazakh airline Qazaq Air also announced the suspension of flights from Astana to Yekaterinburg. The flights will not be operated from December 28 this year to January 27, 2025.
“The suspension of flights was made to ensure the safety of passengers and crew members based on the results of an ongoing risk assessment of flights to Russia,”
– the carrier said in a statement.
For now, the company will continue to operate flights to Omsk and Novosibirsk.
The day before, on December 26, Israel’s national carrier El Al also announced a one-week suspension of flights to Moscow
“in connection with the events in the airspace of Russia”.
According to sources, pilots refuse to fly to Russia after the crash.
“The Russians not only shot down our plane, but also did not allow it to land at the nearest airfields. At least, this is the main version among pilots now. Where is the guarantee that this will not happen again? No one wants to take any risks,”
– said one of the sources among Azerbaijani pilots.
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How Russia shot down the Azerbaijani plane
on December 25, an Embraer 190 plane of the Azerbaijani company AZAL, en route from Baku to Grozny, crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan. There were 62 passengers and five crew members on board: 42 citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 of Russia, six of Kazakhstan, and three of Kyrgyzstan. 38 people died, 29 survived.
Western media sources in the Azerbaijani government, familiar with the investigation, said that the crash was caused by a Russian anti-aircraft missile fired from the Pantsir-S air defense system. It exploded next to the plane as it was trying to land in Grozny, where it was repelling a drone attack. At the same time, the pilots were denied an emergency landing at all the nearest Russian airports, and the airliner’s communication system was paralyzed by electronic warfare, so the disoriented crew had to take a course for Aktau.
Rasim Musabeyov, a member of the Azerbaijani parliamentary committee on international affairs, stated bluntly that “the plane was shot down on Russian territory, in the sky over Grozny, and it is impossible to deny it.” He accused Moscow of trying to cover its tracks in the media space, noting that instead it should apologize, bring the perpetrators to justice, and pay compensation to the victims and families of the victims.
“If this does not happen, then the relationship will certainly move to another plane,” Musabekov warned,
– Musabekov warned.
In his turn, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, in response to journalists’ request to comment on the assumption that the plane was shot down, suggested waiting for the conclusions of the investigation conducted by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia.
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