Following restrictions imposed on the Russian airline, Aeroflot, Russia has retaliated by prohibiting all UK flights to and from the country.
The ban was announced earlier today by the Russian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which was classified as “their tit for that response” by Ben Wallace, the Defense Secretary, on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Russia stated that the ban was imposed due to “the unfriendly decisions by the UK aviation authorities”, according to The BBC.
The ‘unfriendly decisions’ refer to UK’s ban on Russia’s national airline, Aeroflot, from entering its airspace on Thursday.
The UK Department for Transport said in a bulletin that any plane “which is owned, chartered or operated by a person connected with Russia, or which is registered in Russia” will be unable to enter or exit UK airspace.
Scheduled flights that were going to enter Russian airspace are now looking for alternatives due to the ban.
British Airlines issued a statement that it would notify customers regarding the cancelled flights to and from Russia and would issue full refunds. They also said:
“We apologise for the inconvenience but this is clearly a matter beyond our control.”
Virgin Atlantic is now looking for alternative routes for some of its flights to Pakistan and India, which will have delays of between 15 minutes to an hour.
They have also issued a statement, apologising for the delays and adding that “people always come first and we’re monitoring the situation in Ukraine and Russia extremely carefully following the escalation of the conflict.”