How Nuclear Conflict Could Halt Global Air Traffic

[orangecrush]

Closed Russian airspace isn’t the biggest threat to global aviation—it’s the risk of nuclear weapons use grounding all commercial planes.



So long, Virgin Atlantic. After three decades of flying between its London hub and Hong Kong, the airline is canceling the route. The decision is not a political statement; it’s a reflection of geopolitics. Russia’s cancellation of overflight rights for Western airlines has added several hours to the already long flying time between Europe and the Far East. Other flights are likely to join Virgin Atlantic’s London-Hong Kong route in biting the dust. But the suddenly real prospect of a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine is adding a new and far more devastating risk: a complete standstill in global air travel.

Ever since the Cold War, aviation insurance has excluded nuclear war. That means if Russia deploys a so-called mini nuke against Ukraine, global aviation risks being grounded.



“Significant operational complexities due to the ongoing Russian airspace closure have contributed to the commercial decision not to resume flights in March 2023 as planned,” Virgin Atlantic explained in an Oct. 5 statement announcing the London-Hong Kong route’s demise. It was a remarkably bland summary of the turbulence behind the decision.

The “operational complexities” suddenly imposed on Western airlines when Russia closed its airspace to them on Feb. 28 are enormous. No longer being able to fly through Russian airspace means airlines have to divert their planes either northward to the North Pole and Alaska or southward toward the Middle East and Central Asia, and that means longer flying times.


https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/14/russia-ukraine-nuclear-weapons-halt-global-air-traffic/