Ukraine’s sanctions will make Russian air companies suspend flights to Moldova — expert

"When Ukraine imposes sanctions on Russia air carriers, we will have to say goodbye to Moldova. It is lossmaking to make flights to Moldova bypassing Ukraine. If a bypassing route to Europe and Turkey take 40 minutes, it will take at least 90 minutes and 1,500 kilometres to get to Moldova bypassing Ukraine," he said. "It is a sensitive issue for us, since we have a rather big passenger traffic. However, Moldovan air companies will be obviously happy."

Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s cabinet took a decision to ban all flights to the country by Russian air companies.

At the instruction of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk Ukraine’s State Aviation Service started to inform Russian airlines put on the sanctions list that they would not receive permission for making flights to Ukrainian cities from October 25, 2015, the press service of Ukraine’s ministry of infrastructure said.

Ukraine has also banned Russian air companies’ transit flights via Ukraine if they carry goods of defense or dual purpose or Russian manpower.

According to earlier reports, Russia’s biggest air carrier, Aeroflot, along with 20 more Russian air companies were blacklisted by the Ukrainian authorities. These companies were banned, partially or completely, to make flight to destinations in Ukraine or via Ukraine. The sanction list includes Aeroflot subsidiearies Rossiya, Donavia, Orenburg Airlines and Transaero, as well as S7 (Sibir, Russia’s third air carrier in terms of passenger traffic) and Urals Airlines (ranked fifth).