Tuesday 13 May 2014

Russia's battle for Ukrainian skies


Full article on economist.com

On February 28th an Atlasjet flight from Istanbul to Crimea made a U-turn over the Black Sea and headed back to Turkey. The pilots had been informed that Simferopol Airport, the main gateway to the peninsula, was occupied by unidentified armed men. Few doubted that the assailants were Russian special forces, whose seizure of strategic buildings would mark the beginning of the annexation of Crimea. It did not take foreign airlines long to see the writing on the wall. Atlasjet, Turkish Airlines, Azerbaijan Airlines and Latvia’s Air Baltic all suspended flights to the peninsula. So too, eventually, did Ukraine’s flag-carrier, Ukraine International Airlines...