Siberian detour pushes airlines to retrace Cold War era routes

Bloomberg

Global airlines are going to great lengths to avoid Russian airspace but few to the extent of Finnair Oyj, the flag carrier of Finland. It’s flying thousands of miles around its northern neighbour, retracing routes abandoned decades ago at the end of the Cold War.
The economic burden of those end-runs is measured in additional jet fuel burn, extended duty times, and the potential for more crews being required on some longer flights. Airlines may face additional maintenance costs for heavier use of their long-haul jets and some new overflight fees from countries they may not have traversed previously. And, of course, there’s the extra time customers will spend in transit.
The diversions also are blowing a big hole in airlines’ commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “The impact of these is so great, that at this stage we are unfortunately not able to offer passenger connections to all of our Asian destinations,” Perttu Jolma, vice-president of Finnair’s traffic planning team, said.
The Nordic carrier — which until recently touted itself as offering the shortest routes from Europe to Asia — scrapped its Northeast Asian flights and re-routed trips to Southeast Asia after being banished from Russian airspace.
“We’ve had to rethink all our Asian services after the ban on using Russian airspace,” said spokeswoman Paivyt Tallqvist, noting variables like prevailing winds determine if the company routes planes north or south of Russia. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at least 21 airlines have rerouted flights to avoid either Russian airspace or the western portion of Ukraine, according to tracking firm FlightRadar24. The less-direct routings add as much as three hours on most Europe-Asia routes.
United Airlines Holdings Inc cancelled two of its four flights to India after deciding to end Russian overflights on March 1. Trips from San Francisco to Delhi and Newark, New Jersey to Mumbai wouldn’t work without re-fueling or heavily restricting the amount of cargo and passengers. That’s a deal breaker for many flights.
The circuity following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes just as airlines are slammed by a spike in jet fuel prices.