Japanese airlines cancel flights to Europe amid Ukraine crisis

Tokyo  — Japan Airlines  (JAL) and ANA cancelled all flights to and from Europe on Thursday and cancelled or rerouted flights on Friday as well, citing safety concerns after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

ANA also started to cancel some flights due to run on Saturday.

The airlines, which normally use Russian airspace for their Europe flights, join a growing number of carriers that have cancelled or rerouted flights between Europe and north Asia amid the crisis.

“We are continuously monitoring the situation, but given the present situation in Ukraine and the different risks, we have decided to cancel flights,” a JAL spokesperson said.

ANA Cargo’s website said the suspension of flights was due to the “high possibility of its operations not being able to overfly Russia due to the current Ukraine situation”.

Airlines from the EU and Canada have been banned from Russian airspace in response to their curbs on Russian airlines, but Japan has not made a similar announcement to date.

ANA and JAL operate about 60 flights per week through Russian airspace between Tokyo and London, Paris, Frankfurt and Helsinki, according to a spokesperson for flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

Finnair, which had initially cancelled its Tokyo flights after losing access to Russian airspace, said on Wednesday it would resume four weekly Helsinki-Tokyo flights with a new route and a flight time of 13 hours, up from about nine-and-a-half hours previously.

Longer routes by airlines will add to fuel costs and reduce the amount of cargo that can be carried in a tight market for air freight that is worsening pandemic-related disruptions in global supply chains.

Korean Air Lines was still flying over Russian airspace on Thursday, according to Reuters monitoring of FlightRadar24, but Taiwanese carriers are now avoiding Russian airspace and are flying over China and central Asia.

Both JAL and ANA cancelled eight flights each carrier had scheduled for Friday. The impacted routes included those to London, Paris, Frankfurt and Helsinki.

A Tokyo-Brussels flight due to carry vaccines on the return leg will be routed over central Asia, ANA said.

Japan Airlines said it planned to reroute one of its London flights on Friday heading eastward over Alaska, Greenland and Iceland rather than flying the usual westbound route over Russia. The flight will not require a fuel stop.

It cancelled flights to and from Helsinki, Frankfurt, Paris on Friday as well as a second London flight.

Reuters