The number of airlines using the Belarusian airspace for flights to and through the European Union crashed by 40 percent after the Ryanair incident, from 420 to 253 flights daily, a spokesman for the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) told Sputnik on Friday
BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th June, 2021) The number of airlines using the Belarusian airspace for flights to and through the European Union crashed by 40 percent after the Ryanair incident, from 420 to 253 flights daily, a spokesman for the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) told Sputnik on Friday.
"Over the last seven days the average traffic has been 253 flights per day. For the seven days to 20 May (ie two weeks earlier) traffic averaged 420 flights per day," the spokesman said.
The EUROCONTROL representative explained that he was talking about all the flights using the Belarusian airspace to get not only to the EU, but to the area of EUROCONTROL's responsibility, which is "significantly larger than the EU". This also includes situations when the European airspace is used only for transit.
"The flights may have an origin and/or a destination beyond our airspace. For example, a flight from St Petersburg to Cape Town might go through Belarus and then through EUROCONTROL Network airspace," the spokesman specified.
The EUROCONTROL representative added that " flights still using the airspace are mostly [performed by] carriers from outside the EU."
