“These are not sanctions”: EU blacklists 20 Russian airlines

“Air Security Threat”

“This (Blacklisting of Russian airlines. – socialbites.ca) reflects serious safety concerns due to the mandatory re-registration of foreign aircraft in Russia, allowing it to operate without valid airworthiness certificates,” said the European Commission. an idiom.

The organization concluded that Russia’s actions “violated international aviation safety standards”.

“Rosaviatsia has allowed Russian airlines to operate hundreds of foreign aircraft without a valid airworthiness certificate. The Russian airlines involved deliberately violated the relevant international safety standards. This is not only a clear violation of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention), but also poses a direct threat to flight safety,” he said.

He stressed that the current decision was “not another sanction against Russia, but was taken solely on the basis of security concerns”.

“We do not confuse security with politics,” the Commissioner said.

117 ban

In total, 117 airlines are on the updated blacklist of the European Union. It was stated that 90 carriers from 15 countries entered due to “insufficient control over flight safety by the aviation authorities of these states”.

Newcomers to the list include 20 Russian airlines and six carriers from other countries: Venezuelan Avior Airlines, Suriname Blue Wing Airlines, Iran Iran Aseman Airlines, Iraqi Iraqi Airways, Nigerian Med-View Airlines and Zimbabwean Air Zimbabwe.

The European Commission also noted that experts on aviation security from EU member states voted unanimously to update the blacklist. They took this decision at the EU Aviation Safety Committee meeting held in videoconference format on April 5th. The innovations were also supported by the Transport Committee of the European Parliament.

Russian airlines on the black list

• Avrora Airlines;

• Aviastar-TU;

• Izhavya;

• “Yakutia”;

• Rusjet;

• UVT Aero;

• Siberian Airlines;

• Smartavia;

• IrAero;

• Ural Airlines;

• Alrosa Airlines;

• NordStar;

• “Russian line”;

• Patch;

• North Wind;

• Ikar Airlines;

• “Victory”;

• Aeroflot;

• “Russia”;

• Skol (carrier blacklisted in November 2021);

• Utair.

aviation sanctions

At the end of February, after the start of the Russian Federation’s military special operation in Ukraine, the EU banned the sale of aircraft, spare parts and equipment to Russian airlines. They are also prohibited from providing insurance and maintenance services. In addition, for several days, European countries, Canada and the USA closed their airspace to Russian aircraft.

In early March, the American company Boeing announced that it was suspending the supply of spare parts and maintenance of its aircraft from Russian airlines. Soon, Dutch aerospace giant Airbus made a similar decision.

According to the Ministry of Transport, as of March 11, Russian airlines operate 1,367 aircraft, more than half of which are registered in foreign registers – 739.

According to the decree of the Russian government of March 19, Russian airlines May Continuing to operate aircraft leased or leased from foreign companies.

On March 25, Andrey Yurikov, Acting Director General of Pobeda Airlines, addressed the employees and said that the carrier has suspended the operation of 16 of 41 aircraft.

We will reduce our fleet to 25 aircraft in order to ensure flight safety and for our common future. The rest of the aircraft won’t be able to fly until the end of the year, so the backlog of spare parts will be enough for us until lost supply chains are restored. Reducing the fleet will help close our need for spare parts for the entire fleet in the future,” Yurikov told Interfax.

To overcome the consequences of Western sanctions by Aeroflot on April 11 I decided start a program to diversify the fleet and fix the route network.