After a month of the war in Ukraine, the European sky is adjusting. While Russian airspace is blacklisted by airlines, some countries are taking advantage of the changes in routes, such as Georgia and Hungary. Poland has seen its overflights melt by 33% since the beginning of the conflict, while the Baltic countries have disparate trends.
Two weeks after the first statistics on airline bookings, Eurcontrol has published a report on the consequences of the war in Ukraine on the European sky.
A drop in air ticket purchases has been recorded, but that's not all, as overflights in Europe are also affected. According to Eurocontrol, commercial flights are paralyzed in Ukraine, overflights over Moldova are interrupted and remain very disrupted in Russia and Belarus.
The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation has taken two examples to assess the situation, namely the cases of Lithuania and Hungary. These two countries have very different dynamics.
Lithuania lost almost 200 overflights per day (-46%). More than half of this contraction in overflights is due to the cessation of flows to and from Russia, particularly from Germany, France and the UK. This is also the case for Poland (-33%) and Latvia (-25%).
At the same time, flights between Turkey and Russia continue, but they have been reduced by about 30%. Erdogan's country becomes, like Serbia and Dubai, the hub for Russian tourists.
To get to Asia, European carriers are heading south, bypassing Russia, via Georgia for example. The country has seen its overflights increase by 76%.
Hungary has seen its overflights increase by almost 30% in one month (290 per day), owes much to the re-routing of flows to Asia and the Middle East further south, but this accounts for about a third of the variation (100 flights per day). Romania also benefits from these route adjustments.