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Panic In Belavia Over Ban On Servicing Aircraft In Turkey

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Panic In Belavia Over Ban On Servicing Aircraft In Turkey

Flights in this direction are one of the main sources of income.

Yesterday, on March 16, the Turkish profile publication AirportHaber reported that Turkish airports would stop serving and refueling aircraft from Belarus and Russia. This refers to the aircraft that contain more than 25% of American components. In the case of the Belavia airline, the ban applies to Boeing aircraft. The decision is related to sanctions due to the war in Ukraine. We talked with a company employee about how this will affect regular and charter flights to Turkey from Belarus.

The AirportHaber publication states that seven Belavia airliners, which operated flights from Istanbul to Minsk, were banned. The listed aircraft are manufactured by the American corporation Boeing.

Information that such sanctions may be introduced was published by Reuters on February 4 this year. Even then, the Turkish airport ground services provider Havas warned Russian and Belarusian air carriers that it could stop their service. Havas sent the letter shortly before a meeting between US officials and Turkish government and private sector representatives to discuss cooperation on sanctions against Russia.

AirportHaber reports that service for American aircraft owned by Russian and Belarusian airlines has ceased since March 14. However, it is known that flights from Minsk to Istanbul and back in recent days were carried out according to the schedule. Turkey is one of the most popular air destinations from Belarus. For example, only flight B2784 Istanbul — Minsk (which is mentioned in the list of restrictions) is operated by Belavia six times a week.

One of the employees of Belavia, on condition of anonymity, told Zerkalo that the topic of limiting service in Turkey is being discussed among employees, but the company's management has not yet given detailed comments.

“The ban includes at least refueling the aircraft, cleaning, technical support, in-flight meals if necessary,” our interlocutor said. “If the ban is not lifted, it will hit Belavia's budget hard. Turkey is almost the main source of income. Any airline makes good money on charters,” our interlocutor noted.

The Russian airline Aeroflot has already stated that the airline “operates flights to the cities of Turkey in the normal mode, on schedule, within the declared flight program”. According to Russian media, Aeroflot simply replaced its Boeings on flights to Turkey with Airbus 320. But is such a solution possible for the Belarusian airline?

“Yes, in addition to Boeing, we have planes from the Brazilian company Embraer. But this board is not designed for such long distances: when flying from Minsk to Turkey (and the flight takes about 5 hours on average — edit.), it will almost completely run out of fuel. From experience, I can say that even a four-hour flight is a lot for it. The purpose of this plane is to fly from Minsk to Europe for about an hour,” explains a Belavia employee. “Technically, a flight to Turkey is possible, but with an intermediate stop for refueling.”

According to the interlocutor, now there are no alternative options to get directly from Belarus to Turkey and back, except on the boards of Belavia. The fact is that Turkish Airlines does not fly here.

“Today the flight is operated by Belavia flight B2785 from Minsk to Istanbul. Looking forward to the details of this flight,” he shares.

The Zerkalo journalist called Belavia as a concerned citizen who plans to fly from Istanbul to Minsk in the near future.

“I saw the news about the termination of aircraft maintenance in Turkey. Has something changed? Can I buy a ticket?”

“Tickets are sold, flights go as usual”.

“What if I suddenly buy a ticket and something changes? Will the money be returned?”

“If the flight is canceled by the airline in any direction, then there will be a full refund.”

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