Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having an impact on air traffic across Europe, with shifts in traffic from east to west and north to south, and traffic likely to remain skewed for the long term.
Eurocontrol, the European air traffic management organisation, assumes Ukrainian and Russian airspace will remain closed for the next three years in its latest air traffic forecast.
The airspace of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova has been closed to EU, UK and most other airlines since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, although Russian airspace remains open to non-Western air traffic.
Eurocontrol reported traffic over parts of the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) was down by half in March and down by 38% over Poland. But traffic was up by 14% over Turkey and by more than 20% over Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
Traffic was also down over Norway and Denmark, but up over Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, the UK and Ireland.