Tension in the airspace.
The company Air France canceled one of its flights between Paris and Moscow on Friday, for lack of green light from Russia for a change of route intended to avoid the airspace of Belarus, five days after the hijacking of a flight commercial to arrest an opponent.
Other European flights to Moscow remain on hold.
The cancellations of flights are only due to "technical questions", assures his side the spokesman of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov.
According to him, these changes in the flight schedules aim above all to "ensure air safety".
"When planes (...) bypass Belarus, they ask to fly to different places which are absolutely not coordinated, which leads to technical problems", argues the spokesman for the Kremlin, assuring that Russia has "no reason to have new problems ”with the European Union.
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Air France said it had to cancel the Paris-Moscow flight "for operational reasons linked to bypassing Belarusian airspace requiring a new authorization from the Russian authorities to enter their territory".
Passengers redirected to Aeroflot
The previous flight, scheduled for Wednesday, had not taken place for the same reasons.
The French Ministry of Transport then called on Russia to respect the “principle of reciprocity” governing bilateral relations.
The ministry did not immediately comment on this new cancellation.
Air France passengers have "been informed of the cancellation and are offered the postponement on a flight operated by the company Aeroflot or the reimbursement of their trip", according to the company.
An Aeroflot Moscow-Paris flight flew over Belarus in the late morning, according to data from the FlightRadar24 website.
He must make the return flight in the early afternoon.
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On Thursday, the Austrian company Austrian also had to cancel a Vienna-Moscow flight for lack of authorization from Russia.
The latter ended up obtaining on Friday the authorization of the Russian authorities to bypass Belarus.
An Austrian flight from Vienna flew over Ukraine at the end of the morning, south of Belarus, to reach the Russian capital, according to FlightRadar24.
A Warsaw-Moscow flight from the Polish company LOT was also able to reach the Russian capital on Thursday by making a detour to avoid Belarusian airspace, as was a flight from the Czech company Czech Airlines the day before connecting Prague to Moscow, according to FlightRadar24.
Flights from German companies Lufthansa and Swiss Swiss to Moscow also took off for Moscow on Friday morning.
"Defined air corridors" between Europe and Russia
The rules governing air traffic and overflight rights have come to the fore since a Ryanair plane from Athens to Vilnius was intercepted on Sunday and forced to land in Minsk, where an opponent of Alexander Lukashenko's regime been disembarked and arrested.
In reaction, several European countries and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have advised against using Belarusian airspace, while some countries, including France, have closed their space to the national company Belavia.
Flights between Europe and Russia “are permitted to use defined air lanes.
If a company wants to change these routes, there must have been a prior agreement between the company concerned and Russia, ”according to the European air traffic monitoring body Eurocontrol.