Russian air links with outside world diminish significantly: Bloomberg

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, British Airways and SAS AB are the latest to join an exodus led by discount carrier EasyJet Plc, Bloomberg reported.

Lufthansa’s latest cuts will eliminate 15 weekly flights, or 25% of the total. Its Austrian arm will also cut routes this winter, limiting services to Moscow and Krasnodar in the south after quitting St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don. The Swiss unit will pare frequencies from Zurich to St. Petersburg.

British Airways will cut capacity by deploying Airbus Group SE A321 narrow-body jets on a five-times weekly London-Moscow flight that currently uses Boeing Co. 747 and 777 wide-bodies. Two other daily services already use the single-aisle planes.

SAS’s schedule shows Scandinavian Airlines will halt Copenhagen-Moscow flights in March, when EasyJet also ceases its sole service from London Gatwick to the Russian capital. Air Berlin Plc said Thursday it would end trips from Dusseldorf and Berlin to Moscow and Berlin to Kaliningrad on the Baltic, and British Airways is taking 747 jumbos off its London-Moscow route.

Read alsoMoscow requests talks on commercial flights, Ukraine agreesForeign carriers are retreating from Russia after the economy entered recession for the first time since 2009 in the second quarter, with the ruble down almost 25% against the euro in 2015 and wages declining for 11 straight months. Western sanctions imposed after the annexation of Crimea last year are also hurting trade, and stricter visa terms are hindering travel.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the State Aviation Service on September 28 notified the Russian airlines on sanctions imposed against them on the part of Ukraine. Once in the sanctions list, the Russian airlines will be banned from flying to the Ukrainian airports starting the 2015-2016 winter navigation period - from October 25.

On September 29, Rosaviation notified all Ukrainian airlines on the introduction of a ban on flights to Russia from October 25.