More airlines are expected to avoid Ukraine's airspace after a US warning that Russia could invade at any time
"My guess would be that Ukraine will become unavailable pretty soon if what we've seen over the weekend crystallises into a couple of more carriers actually pulling the pin," said Mark Zee, founder of flight operations advisory firm OPSGROUP.
"I don't think it will be government advice that's doing it so much as it will be insurance-based unavailability or carriers looking at other carriers. So if you have KLM, Lufthansa and British Airways, for example, deciding not to overfly Ukraine at all, we're almost back into an MH17 scenario," he said.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board, two-thirds of them Dutch citizens. Zee said that the avoidance of Ukraine's airspace would have the biggest routing impact on airlines from neighbouring countries but that it was not expected to add much to the cost of long-haul flights.
Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on Sunday the government had allocated $591.98 million to ensure flight safety for insurance and leasing companies to guarantee the continuation of flights through its airspace.
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