Keeping a close eye on the geopolitical issues resulted in American Airlines rerouting flights on Saturday that would ordinarily use Russian airspace. With U.S, President Trump threatening to attack Syrian chemical weapons capabilities, and the country being a close ally of Putin’s Russia, political tension between the two countries has risen considerably over recent weeks.
However, after a day of flights from Dallas-Beijing, Dallas-Hong Kong and Chicago-Beijing flights stopping in Los Angeles to refuel as Russian airspace is critical to flying non-stop on these routes, the situation has returned to normal.
According to an American Airlines’ spokesman, “The team at American regularly monitors global geopolitical issues and makes changes to aircraft routings when warranted. We operated our normal schedule [again] April 15.”
A broad agreement that allows US and Russian jets to use each other’s airspace is set to expire on April 17. There are now serous concerns that all U.S. carriers could be banned from Russian airspace after the Russian Ministry of Transport canceled talks with the U.S. State Department which were scheduled for April 18 and 19.
While responding to questions posed by Loadstar, a US State Department official commented: “We periodically meet with our aviation partners to discuss issues of mutual interest that relate to implementation of our air transport agreements. “We had planned to meet with Russian civil aviation officials in Washington this spring, after last having had discussions in October 2016 in Moscow. Russia’s Ministry of Transport notified US Embassy Moscow that Russian officials will be unable to come for talks at this time.”
However, the official sought to play down concerns that Russia may ban US airlines from flying through its airspace next week.
