newstodate.aero
Aug 13, 2018 (newstodate): Ahead of a new round in aviation talks between Scandinavia and Russia slated for early 2019, the Norwegian low-cost carrier Norwegian is again pressing hard for access to Russian overflight rights.
Earlier, Norwegian has complained of lack of support from Norway's negotiators claimed to be predisposed towards protecting SAS that has, however, no own Asian flight from Norway.
As a result, Norwegian still has been granted access to fly only over Russia's southern airspace which restricts it to operate routes only to Thailand from Scandinavia.
On Norwegian's wishing list are Asian destinations such as Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Osaka and Shanghai that would, however, require flights on the trans-Sibir air lanes to achieve profitable operations.
Norwegian has itself claimed to be ready to invest massively in opening up new Asian routes if granted Russian overflight rights today enjoyed only by SAS.
Under today's agreement, the three Scandinavian countries have split responsibility for negotiating air services rights between them, with Norway in charge of negotiations with Russia.
Scandinavian aviation talks with Russia were last slated for June 2018, but postponed on Russia's request till November 2018, but have now seemingly again been postponed till early 2019.
While aviation talks between the three Scandinavian countries and Russia are thus still in a limbo, Finland has repeatedly succeeded in raising the volumes of air services through Russian airspace.
After the latest round of negotiations in 2017, Finland obtained rights to increase the number of flights between Finland and destinations in Asia through Russian airspace from now 65 to 80 weekly operations.
With this latest increase, Finnair has been able to increase its volume of flights on these lanes by 15 percent, allowing the carrier to launch flights on new routes to China as well as increasing the services to Korea and Japan.
Earlier, Norwegian has complained of lack of support from Norway's negotiators claimed to be predisposed towards protecting SAS that has, however, no own Asian flight from Norway.
As a result, Norwegian still has been granted access to fly only over Russia's southern airspace which restricts it to operate routes only to Thailand from Scandinavia.
On Norwegian's wishing list are Asian destinations such as Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Osaka and Shanghai that would, however, require flights on the trans-Sibir air lanes to achieve profitable operations.
Norwegian has itself claimed to be ready to invest massively in opening up new Asian routes if granted Russian overflight rights today enjoyed only by SAS.
Under today's agreement, the three Scandinavian countries have split responsibility for negotiating air services rights between them, with Norway in charge of negotiations with Russia.
Scandinavian aviation talks with Russia were last slated for June 2018, but postponed on Russia's request till November 2018, but have now seemingly again been postponed till early 2019.
While aviation talks between the three Scandinavian countries and Russia are thus still in a limbo, Finland has repeatedly succeeded in raising the volumes of air services through Russian airspace.
After the latest round of negotiations in 2017, Finland obtained rights to increase the number of flights between Finland and destinations in Asia through Russian airspace from now 65 to 80 weekly operations.
With this latest increase, Finnair has been able to increase its volume of flights on these lanes by 15 percent, allowing the carrier to launch flights on new routes to China as well as increasing the services to Korea and Japan.