Ukraine conflict disrupts Asia-Pacific airlines' operations – probably for an extended period

Some Asia-Pacific airlines are experiencing major disruption to their European networks due to the Ukraine crisis, which is causing cancellations and route changes to avoid overflying Russia. Russian overflights are important to many of the Asian carriers for their Western European routes, particularly those airlines from Northeast Asia.

There have been a wide variety of responses to the war in Ukraine by Asia-Pacific airlines. These have included cancelling most flights to Europe, cancelling Moscow flights, or rerouting services to avoid Russia. Others are continuing to fly through Russian airspace, but are watching the situation and making contingency plans.

Many European and North American airlines were already prevented from using Russian airspace due to retaliatory closures. This has had major repercussions for the Europe-Asia air travel market, which was already lagging in its recovery.