Kommersant: Russian airlines continue flights even with suspended airworthiness certificates

On March 13, Russian airlines took to the skies about a hundred aircraft registered in Bermuda with a suspended airworthiness certificate every hour on March 13, the Kommersant newspaper reports, citing data from the Flightradar24 portal.

Meanwhile, the publication emphasizes, the Air Code of the Russian Federation also prohibits operating aircraft without an airworthiness certificate, and not all airlines managed to re-register aircraft in the Russian register.

So far, only charter Royal Flight and aircraft of the Volga Dnepr group have suspended flights.

Earlier it was noted that sanctions against Russia, imposed by Western countries due to its military operation in Ukraine, limited the ability of the Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority (BCAA) to oversee the safety of Russian aircraft.

Recall that on February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees recognizing the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), and on February 24 he made an emergency appeal to the Russians and announced a special military operation in Donbass. In his speech, he stated that “circumstances require decisive action from Russia” and stressed that “Russia will not allow Ukraine to have nuclear weapons.”

In response to Russia’s actions, Western countries (USA, Canada, European Union, Great Britain, Japan) announced new, tougher sanctions against the Russian Federation, including financial and economic ones.

In particular, Russian banks fell under the sanctions, including Sberbank, VTB, Novikombank, FC Otkritie and Sovcombank, and for a number of state-owned companies it was difficult to attract foreign capital.

Later, the EU countries and the United States agreed to disconnect Russian banks that fell under sanctions from the international system of interbank transactions and information exchange SWIFT. In addition, it was decided to freeze the assets of the Bank of Russia, which will create difficulties for its use of international reserves. EU countries also pledged to take steps to limit the sale of citizenship — the so-called “golden passports” that allow wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government to become citizens of EU states and gain access to their financial systems. In addition, the European Union, the United States, Canada and a number of other countries have closed the sky for Russian aircraft.

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