[conspire] Aeroflot Leaving Miami and the Future of Russian Aviation

[Deirdre Saoirse Moen]

Aeroflot took their last flight out of the US on 2/28 and, with airspace closing to Russian planes everywhere, took a wee bit of a detour:

https://www.airlive.net/aeroflot-flight-su111-violated-canadas-airspace/

Blue's the original flight plan; green is as flown (where it differs from the plan).

You can see many planes with the much more common crossing south of Iceland here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/t3eetx/aeroflot_111_miami_to_moscow_violated_canadian/

We've flown far enough north that we've seen both Greenland and Iceland out the window, but I've never seen *that* much of Greenland. It's pretty clear they were trying to get far enough north to avoid all the banned airspaces, and there simply wasn't a way to do that *and* head northward without violating Canadian airspace.

(I suspect the Canadian complaint is mere formality; the flight plan would already have been filed with them.)

Note that they had to get that far north in case, as it happened, Norwegian, Swedish, and/or Finnish air space closed to them. Thus, at the end, they flew around the Nordic countries.

Interesting analysis on the future of Russian aviation from a pilot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrgI4gB5W2o

* 2/3 of their planes are leased; 50% for Aeroflot (whoops) and they have 30 days to return them
* Aeroflot's repair facility is in Germany (whoops)
* They can't buy repair parts (because Swift and because of sanctions)

-- 
  Deirdre Saoirse Moen
  deirdre at deirdre.net