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Back in the skies for now: Russian, Czech flights resumed in full until July 7

The Czech Republic and Russia want to come to an agreement, the ministry said

© Sergei Bobylev/TASS

PRAGUE, July 2. /TASS/. The Czech Republic and Russia have agreed to resume all flights between the two countries until July 7 and expect that an agreement will be reached soon, the Czech Transport Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Flights by Russian air carriers have been granted a permit again," the document says. "The Czech Republic and Russia want to strike a deal. The current crisis in air transport communication between the Czech Republic and Russia has been the result of a failed agreement between the two countries’ flights departments."

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The Czechs expect that a deal with their Russian partners will be reached in the near future, the ministry said. That is why they have now granted Russian air carriers a temporary permit, Prague's top transport authority stated.

"Russia’s Transport Ministry granted Czech Airlines a flight permit [over Russian territory] early in the morning on July 2, 2019. Immediately afterwards, the Czech Transport Ministry began responding in kind towards Russian air carriers. And [their planes] were granted permission to fly until July 7, 2019," the document says.

After the Czech air authorities had rescinded permits for the flights, Russia’s flagship airline Aeroflot reported that it had cancelled four daily flights to and from Prague, out of its six. Pobeda, a Russian budget carrier, said it had cancelled flights from Moscow to the spa town of Karlovy Vary starting from Thursday, while Ural Airlines grounded its flights from Yekaterinburg to Prague. A source told TASS that the Czech Republic decided to suspend flights by Russian carriers after the two countries had not managed to hammer out a trans-Siberian flight route for Czech Airlines from Prague to Seoul.

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