International aviation industry caused by jet diversions in Belarus Aviation News

Belarus has suffered its biggest political crisis in years after a plane crashed and said it turned into an alert for a fake bomb to arrest a dissident journalist, angering the United States and Europe.

Several European companies immediately began avoiding Belarusian airspace, a key corridor between Western Europe and Moscow, and long-haul flights between Western Europe and Asia.

Flightradar24’s tracking data showed at least one Ryanair flight bypassing Belarus, adding hundreds of kilometers on the trip, and the Latvian airBaltic carrier said it had decided not to use the country’s airspace “until the situation is clearer”.

“We, like all European airlines, are seeking the guidance of the European authorities and NATO today,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary told Newstalk Radio in Ireland.

Others, including Chinese and Turkish carriers, continued to fly over Belarus as it charges fees denominated in euros to use its airspace. Each flight brings about $ 500 in revenue to Minsk, adding up to a million a year, a Belarusian official said.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it had reported the incident to 31 member states and an airline source said the agency had recommended “caution” about Belarus.

Aviation experts say a decades-long partnership system is now a crucial test in the light of East-West tensions.

The United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said the incident violated an aviation treaty: part of the international order created after World War II.

“ICAO is very concerned about the seemingly forced landing of a Ryanair flight and its passengers because it could do so against the Chicago Convention,” he said Sunday.

Experts warned that some Western politicians would encounter severe obstacles to calls for the complete closure of Belarusian airspace.

Under global aviation regulations, neither the ICAO nor other nations can close the airspace of another, but some, such as the U.S., have the power to prevent their airlines from flying there.

The U.S. said it had convened a meeting of the 36-country ICAO council, which has the power to investigate any situation that hinders the development of international aviation.

“It simply came to our notice then [Chicago] Agreement. It’s piracy, “said Kevin Humphreys, a former Irish aviation regulator, about the incident in Belarus.

There are no regulators

Worldwide airlines called for EU-sponsored research.

“We strongly condemn any interference or harsh conditions for the landing of civil aircraft operations that do not comply with the rules of international law,” the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said.

“A full investigation by the competent international authorities is needed,” said IATA, which represents about 280 companies, but does not include Ryanair among its members.

It was not immediately clear how the probe would be organized.

Although highly regulated nationally, and supported by globally harmonized rules to make the sky safe, the aircraft does not have the global police to avoid ongoing conflicts over sovereignty.

Although it has no regulatory power, ICAO is at the center of a system of safety and security regulations that operates through political barriers but often requires slow consensus.

The rules are managed by 193 Montreal-based agencies, including Belarus, and ICAO has rarely been directly involved in issues such as airport security.

In the 1980s a wave of kidnappings led to ICAO disagreement. The point then was to force countries to agree to leave hijacked planes on the ground.

Humphreys said it would be the first time the agency has had to consider allegations that one of its member countries was forced to land a plane, in what Ryanair’s O’Leary called a “state-sponsored kidnapping.”

Belarus said on Monday that its drivers had only given “recommendations” to Ryanair pilots.

Russia accused the West of hypocrisy, citing the case of the Bolivian presidential plane that was forced to land in Austria in 2013 and the case of the Belarusian aircraft carrier ordered to land in Ukraine in 2016.

In 2013, Bolivia said it had diverted the plane of then-president Evo Morales, a former contractor for the U.S. spy agency Edward Snowden, on suspicion that Washington had revealed secret details of U.S. surveillance activities.

Aviation experts say the freedoms extended to civilian aircraft do not apply to presidential or state aircraft because they require a special permit to enter the airspace of another country.

At the 2016 incident, Belarus, the national carrier of Belarus, said it had demanded compensation from Ukraine.

Lawyers say any probe or legal claim should also be made between the usual travel jurisdictions of liberalized aircraft: an aircraft registered on a Polish plane by an Irish group between Greece and Lithuania over the EU over non-EU Belarus.

Under the 1944 Chicago Convention – also known as the International Civil Aviation Convention – each country has independence in its airspace, although the treaty prohibits the use of civilian aircraft that could endanger security.

But the right to fly over other countries is enshrined in a side treaty called the International Air Services Transport Agreement, of which Belarus is not a member.

A separate treaty in Belarus in 1971 outlaws the hijacking of aircraft or the disclosure of false information in a manner that jeopardizes the safety of aircraft.