Which scheduled flight is the most impacted by the Russia/Ukraine air border closure?

Which scheduled flight is the most impacted by the Russia/Ukraine air border closure?

3/25/2022 2:10:49 PM

CNN has an infographic on that question: Seoul to Helinsky is the most impacted route mentioned in their graphic, in terms of absolute time increase (4h8min).

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3/21/2022 10:57:01 AM

The question is which flight is most impacted.

UA867/UA868 – SFO to DEL and DEL to SFO, have both been canceled since the conflict started, as United does not have any aircraft that are capable of making the flight without flying over Russia/Ukraine.

The flights listed in the other answers have had their flight times increased, but from the perspective of the flight, fairly clearly being canceled is more of an impact than a longer route!

(There are likely other flights that have also been canceled for the same reason, this is just one that springs to mind)

6/23/2022 10:03:49 PM

In terms of proportional increase rather than absolute increase, I expect the worst-hit flight is Kaliningrad-Minsk, operated by Belavia as flight B2949/B2950 four times a week. The great-circle route between the two is only 470 km, but the routing to avoid closed airspace increases that to over 1600 km, for a factor of 3.4.

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For a more-frequently-flown example, Kaliningrad-Moscow sees a substantial increase. The great-circle distance is 1070 km, but flight AFL1007 recently detoured for a total flight distance of around 1700 km, a factor of 1.6.

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3/19/2022 12:24:04 AM

I’ll kick off with Finnair flight AY74 from Tokyo to Helsinki. Scheduled flight time used to be 10:15, now it’s taking around 13 hours.

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You can somewhat approximate this route in the Great Circle mapper by using HEL-LYR-WAA-UHPX-NRT. I also added HEL-BUD-TBS-ULN-NRT as a Southern route as well, and the direct flight.

Great Circle mapped route

Based on the mapper the NRT-HEL direct distance was around 4900 miles, the new Northern route is approximately 6700 miles, while the Southern route avoiding Russia and Ukraine through Hungary->Georgia->Mongolia would be around 7100-7200 miles.

Interestingly, the new polar routing is essentially the same as the one Finnair pioneered in the early 1980s, when it became the first airline to fly direct from Europe to Asia, before the Soviet Union permitted overflights.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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