Ryanair til Minsk - Mye oppstyr etter åpembare brudd på internasjonale overenskomster - Curt Lewis

 

International aviation industry roiled by Belarus jet diversion Aviation experts say a decades-old system of cooperation now faces a crucial test under the glare of East-West tensions. Some European airlines immediately began avoiding Belarus airspace, a key route for long-haul flights between Western Europe and Asia, after Belarus forced a Ryanair plane carrying dissident journalist Roman Protasevich to land in Minsk and arrested him. Global aviation faces its biggest political crisis in years after Belarus scrambled a fighter jet and flagged what turned out to be a false bomb alert to detain a dissident journalist, prompting outrage from the United States and Europe. Some European airlines immediately began avoiding Belarus airspace, a key corridor between Western Europe and Moscow and a route for long-haul flights between western Europe and Asia. Flightradar24 tracking data showed at least one Ryanair flight avoiding Belarus, adding hundreds of miles to its trip, and Latvian carrier airBaltic said it had decided not to use the country’s airspace “until the situation becomes clearer”. “We, like all the European airlines are looking for guidance today from the European authorities and from NATO,” Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary told Ireland’s Newstalk radio. Others, including Chinese and Turkish carriers, continued to fly over Belarus, which charges euro-denominated fees to use its airspace. Each flight brings Minsk revenue equivalent to some $500, adding up to millions each year, a Belarus official said. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it had notified its 31 member states about the incident and an airline source said the agency had recommended “caution” over Belarus. Aviation experts said a decades-old system of cooperation now faces a crucial test under the glare of East-West tensions. The United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said the incident may have contravened a core aviation treaty: part of the international order created after World War II. “ICAO is strongly concerned by the apparent forced landing of a Ryanair flight and its passengers, which could be in contravention of the Chicago Convention,” it said on Sunday. But experts cautioned that calls from some Western politicians for the outright closure of Belarus airspace would come up against tough obstacles. Under global aviation rules, neither ICAO nor any nation can close another’s airspace, but some, such as the US, have the authority to tell their own airlines not to fly there. The US said it had called for a meeting of ICAO’s 36-nation council, which has the power to investigate any situation that hinders the development of international aviation. “It looks like a gross abuse of the [Chicago] Convention. It’s piracy,” Kevin Humphreys, a former Irish aviation regulator, said of the Belarus incident. No regulator Global airlines called for an investigation backed by the European Union. “We strongly condemn any interference or requirement for landing of civil aviation operations that is inconsistent with the rules of international law,” said the International Air Transport Association (IATA). “A full investigation by competent international authorities is needed,” said IATA, which represents about 280 airlines but does not include Ryanair among its members. It was not immediately clear how a probe would be organised. Although highly regulated at a national level, and supported by globally harmonised rules to keep skies safe, aviation lacks a global policeman to avoid constant disputes over sovereignty. While it has no regulatory power, ICAO sits at the centre of a system of safety and security standards that operates across political barriers but requires an often slow-moving consensus. The rules are managed through the Montreal-based agency by its 193 members, including Belarus, and ICAO has only rarely become directly involved in matters such as airport security. ICAO was thrown into discord over a wave of hijackings in the 1980s. Back then, the issue was whether to oblige countries to agree to let hijacked aircraft land on their soil. Humphreys said it would be the first time in memory that the agency has had to ponder accusations that one of its own member countries had forced a plane to land, in what Ryanair’s O’Leary called “state-sponsored hijacking”. Belarus said on Monday that its controllers had only issued “recommendations” to Ryanair pilots. Russia accused the West of hypocrisy, citing the case of a Bolivian presidential plane forced to land in Austria in 2013 and a Belarus jetliner ordered to land in Ukraine in 2016. In 2013, Bolivia said then-President Evo Morales’s plane had been diverted over suspicions that former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by Washington for divulging secret details of US surveillance activities, was on board. But aviation experts said the freedoms extended to civil airliners do not apply to presidential or state aircraft, which need special permission to enter another country’s airspace. In the 2016 incident, Belarus national carrier Belavia said it had demanded compensation from Ukraine. Lawyers say any probe or legal claim would also have to plough through a tangle of jurisdictions typical of liberalised air travel: a Polish-registered jet flown by an Irish group between EU nations Greece and Lithuania, over non-EU Belarus. Under the 1944 Chicago Convention – also known as the Convention on International Civil Aviation – each country has sovereignty over its own airspace, though the treaty prohibits any use of civil aviation that may endanger safety. But the right to overfly other countries is contained in a side treaty called the International Air Services Transit Agreement, of which Belarus is not a member. A separate 1971 treaty that includes Belarus outlaws the seizure of aircraft or knowingly communicating false information in a way that endangers aircraft safety.

EU Bans Belarusian Aircraft over Ryanair Forced Diversion The European Union has banned Belarusian airlines from the airspace and airports of its 27 member states in response to the incident on May 23 when the Belarus government forced a Ryanair flight to land in the capital Minsk so that it could arrest political dissident Roman Protasevich. A package of punitive measures agreed upon during an emergency meeting of the European Council on Monday night also called for further economic sanctions against Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko and his associates. Demanding the immediate release of Protasevich and his traveling companion Sofia Sopega, who were detained after Belarus authorities ordered passengers from Flight 4978 off the aircraft when it landed in Minsk, the European Council called on ICAO to “urgently investigate this unprecedented and unacceptable incident.” The ICAO Council plans to hold a special meeting on May 27 from which further measures against Belarus might emerge. In cases where a member state breaches ICAO requirements, it can have its ICAO Assembly and Council voting rights suspended. Belarus is a member of the ICAO Assembly, but not the ICAO Council. U.S. President Joe Biden endorsed the EU sanctions, indicating that his administration will now consider “appropriate options.” Earlier on Monday, the UK suspended the permit that allows flag carrier Belavia to operate into the country. Meanwhile, multiple airlines have opted to avoid Belarusian airspace on safety grounds. EASA manages the conflict zone alert list for the region and, as of Tuesday morning, it had not issued a conflict zone information bulletin covering Belarus. The International Federation of Airline Pilots Association (IFALPA) and the European Cockpit Association (ECA) have protested against the intervention of a Belarusian air force MiG-29 fighter in forcing the Ryanair crew to land on the pretext of a bomb scare, which the country's security service appears to have fabricated. The groups said the Belarus government’s actions contravened ICAO’s founding Chicago Convention and appeared to constitute “state-sponsored hijacking.” They called for an independent investigation into the incident. “This unprecedented act of unlawful interference will potentially upend all the assumptions about the safest response to bomb threats on flight and interceptions,” said IFALPA and ECA in a joint statement. “Without trust and reliable information from states and air navigation service providers, handling both types of events becomes much riskier to manage.” The groups also addressed the circumstances in which the Belarus air force apparently coerced the Ryanair flight crew to land at Minsk, even though at the point when the aircraft diverted it appeared to be closer to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. Flight 4978 was en route from the Greek capital Athens to Vilnius when it passed through Belarusian airspace. Both Greece and Lithuania are EU member states. “IFALPA and ECA stress that the pilot-in-command always has the best overview of the actual situation on board and must be able to react according to the level of risk, regardless of external circumstances,” said the joint statement. “Any measures taken by states to address a specific threat should enhance the crew’s ability to assess the situation thoroughly.” Noticeably absent from the widespread condemnation of the Belarus government was its close ally Russia. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called on the case to be “assessed without any haste and hurry.” He pointed to a July 2013 incident in which a head-of-state aircraft carrying former Bolivian President Evo Morales diverted to Vienna, Austria, on a flight from Moscow to the Bolivian capital La Paz, apparently as justification for Belarus’s actions. In that case, authorities in Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal refused to allow access to their airspace, effectively forcing the aircraft to divert for fuel. Bolivia and Russia accused the U.S. government of orchestrating the incident after they became convinced that fugitive journalist Edward Snowden was being smuggled out of Russia on the aircraft. Authorities held Flight 4978 on the ground in Minsk for more than five hours before allowing it to continue to Vilnius. In addition to Protasevich and Sogepa, three other passengers did not reboard the aircraft and Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary on Monday said that they likely were Belarus KGB agents involved in the alleged mission to forcibly divert the flight. According to Eurocontrol, the pilots issued 20 departure delay messages indicating that they were either not ready or not permitted to depart Minsk. Due to the recent closure of the eastern portion of Ukraine’s airspace due to political tensions with Russia, several EU airlines have been overflying Belarus on flights to Asia. Eurocontrol data shows that over the seven days to May 19, approximately 2,500 flights overflew or took off and landed Belarusian airspace, of which Belavia operated 419. The state-owned carrier has a 30-aircraft fleet including 15 Boeing 737s, three Embraer E195-E2s, seven E195s, and five E175s. On May 24, Belavia operated 20 flights to and from EU airports, with between 40 and 60 using EU airspace and around 64 flights using the wider Eurocontrol airspace. On the same day, Lufthansa, Lot, and Air Baltic all operated flights to and from Minsk. A Lufthansa aircraft was reportedly held on the ground for a security check that day, but the airline has not confirmed details of that incident. Eurocontrol said that its Network Manager unit is working with airlines and air navigation service providers in countries neighboring Belarus to ensure enough capacity to allow airlines to avoid Belarusian airspace.