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Russia allows Austrian Airlines to fly to Moscow bypassing Belarus

Austrian Airlines can operate the flight OS 601/602 scheduled for today from Vienna to Moscow and back

© EPA-EFE/CHRISTIAN BRUNA

VIENNA, May 28. / TASS /. Russia has issued a permit to Austrian Airlines to operate a passenger flight on May 28 from Vienna to Moscow on an alternative route that does not pass through the airspace of Belarus, the representative of the Austrian Airlines told TASS on Friday.

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"The Russian authorities have today issued permission to Austrian Airlines for an alternative flight route from Vienna to Moscow, which does not go through Belarusian airspace. Austrian Airlines can operate the flight OS 601/602 scheduled for today from Vienna to Moscow and back," the airline representative said.

According to Austrian Airlines, there is still no permission to carry out further planned passenger flights from Vienna to Moscow and transport flights from Vienna to the Chinese Nanjing through an alternative route. "Nevertheless, Austrian Airlines expects a positive response from the Russian authorities here as well," the airline representative said. She explained that re-routing flights to Moscow and Nanjing must first receive approval from the authorities.

Austrian Airlines told TASS that the company on Thursday was forced to cancel its passenger flight from Vienna to Moscow, because Russia did not give it permission to operate it on an alternative route that did not pass through the airspace of Belarus. For the same reason, the transport flight from Vienna to Chinese Nanjing could not take off on the same day. Along with many other European airlines, the Austrian air carrier suspended flights over the airspace of Belarus based on the recommendation of the European Aviation Safety Agency in connection with the decision of the EU summit due to the emergency landing on May 23 in Minsk by the Irish airline Ryanair.

The Austrian Foreign Ministry called the Russian decision not to issue a permit incomprehensible and called on Moscow not to create artificial obstacles to air traffic between Russia and Europe. Russian Ambassador to Vienna Dmitry Lyubinsky stated that it was inadmissible to politicize the topic of air traffic between Russia and Austria, since the normalization of air traffic is solvable in a dialogue between the aviation authorities of the two countries.

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