Ukraine closed its airspace to all civilian aircraft on Thursday after regulators around the world scrambled to warn airlines to avoid the region due to the risk of planes being shot from the sky by dedicated anti-aircraft missiles.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, Russia’s President Putin announced a ‘military operation’ in Eastern Ukraine. Observers fear the operation is a prelude to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine with the spectre of an attack on the capital Kyiv.
European air safety regulator EASA issued a ‘conflict zone information bulletin’ to operators on Thursday, ordering airlines based across the bloc to avoid flying through Ukrainian airspace and to exercise ‘extreme caution’ within 100 nautical miles of the Bielorussian and Russia-Ukraine borders.
The British government also issued an urgent ‘notice to air missions’ warning airlines of a hazardous situation within Ukraine. “This is due to the potential risk from dedicated anti-aircraft weaponry and heightened military activity”, the UK Department for Transport said in a statement.
Most European airlines had already suspended flights to and from Ukraine due to rising tensions in the last few weeks, with Lufthansa, KLM and Air France all grounding flights in recent days. Wizz Air and Ryanair confirmed on Thursday that it had now suspended operations in Ukraine.
“Due to the current events in Ukraine and the airspace closure, Wizz Air regrets to inform our customers that the airline must temporarily suspend all flight operations in the country,” the airline said in a statement on Thursday.
A spokesperson for Ryanair said the carrier would suspend Ukraine flights for an initial period of 14-days and would remove flights from sale for at least four weeks.
“We sincerely regret and apologise for these unprecedented disruptions and any inconvenience that they will inevitably cause to our Ukrainian customers,” Ryanair said in a statement.
Ukrainian airline Skyup Airlines flight PQ7980 from Tashkent to Kyiv was forced to divert to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, after Ukraine suddenly closed its airspace on Thursday.
An El Al Israel Airlines plane flying from Tel Aviv to Toronto was forced to quickly divert out of Ukrainian airspace after the closure was announced.
