Alaska's Anchorage Airport said airlines have started making inquiries about capacity in case routes over Russia are impacted due to the Ukraine crisis, in a sign of the conflict's growing fallout for the global aviation industry.
Ukrainian forces on Thursday were battling Russian invaders on three sides after Moscow unleashed the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. OPSGROUP, an aviation industry cooperative that shares information on flight risks, said any aircraft travelling through Russian airspace should have contingency plans in place for closed airspace due to risks or sanctions.
Jefferies analysts said European airlines were also likely to take a longer-term hit to demand in light of the conflict, pointing to a 27per cent fall in travel from the European Union to Ukraine and Russia over the span of two years after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.