The Impact of the Ukraine-Russia Conflict on the Aviation Sector: February-May 2022

Abstract

Aviation; it is a global sector that affects many areas such as education, trade, tourism, and is also affected by many situations such as epidemics, economic fluctuations, political disagreements and military intervention. For this reason, the disagreement between Ukraine and Russia also quietly affects the aviation industry. Although disagreements seem to continue between the two countries, issues such as the closure of airspaces, changes in flight costs as a result of changing routes, the situation of aircraft and component manufacturers, tourism and aviation security concern aviation globally. In this study, which was conducted to reveal the impact of the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the aviation sector, case study research, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. In a four-month period, sources such as newspaper news, internet news sites, websites of authorities were scanned, and it was tried to reveal how the conflict was reflected in the aviation industry. This method was chosen considering that it is suitable for this study in terms of revealing what happened in the past, how people were affected, how the processes took place, and what the results were. Between February 24 and March 2, when the disagreements between the two countries began, all flights to Ukraine were stopped, while air traffic in neighbouring countries decreased. International passenger traffic of Russian airlines decreased by at least four times in March 2022 compared to March 2021, and by sixteen times compared to March 2019. The Ukraine-Russia conflict also negatively affected the flight times of passenger flights between East and West. As a result of the study, the great impact of the four-month period, which is thought to be short, on the aviation sector has been tried to be revealed.