AZAL suspends flights on the Baku-Astrakhan-Baku route for an indefinite period
Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) has suspended flights from Baku to Astrakhan and back "for security reasons." This was reported by the press service of the airline. The duration of the restriction is not specified.
According to the carrier, the decision to suspend flights is due to the fact that recently the Russian authorities have been periodically closing the airspace over Astrakhan.
This morning, flight restrictions were imposed at the airports of Vladikavkaz, Grozny and Makhachkala. According to Russian media, similar measures were taken at night and early in the morning at the airports of Volgograd, Kazan, Astrakhan, Nizhnekamsk, Saratov and Ulyanovsk, some of them were later canceled. In the Astrakhan region, according to local authorities, drones tried to attack fuel and energy complexes.
Azerbaijan Airlines assured that they would monitor the situation and promptly inform passengers about changes in the flight schedule. Passengers who bought tickets for the Baku-Astrakhan-Baku flights will be able to exchange them or receive a full refund, AZAL promised.
On December 25, an Embraer plane of Azerbaijan Airlines, flying from Baku to Grozny, crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan. There were 67 people on board, including 42 citizens of Azerbaijan, 16 of Russia, 6 of Kazakhstan and 3 of Kyrgyzstan. 29 passengers survived.
The official causes of the crash have not yet been announced, but the dominant version is that the plane came under fire from Russian air defense systems during an attack by Ukrainian drones on the territory of Chechnya. This is the opinion of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, in connection with which he demands that the Russian Federation admit guilt, punish the perpetrators and pay compensation. During a telephone conversation with him, Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized, but only for the fact that “the tragic incident occurred in Russian airspace.”
Two weeks after the tragedy, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) recommended that airlines refrain from flights to five Russian cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Rostov-on-Don and Samara. The organization explained this call by the high risk to flight safety, referring to the recent crash of an Azerbaijani plane.
“Most of the incidents occurred in airspace not closed by Russia during drone attacks or the activation of air defense systems. This creates a high risk to flight operations, as evidenced by the incident with the AZAL flight on December 25, 2024,” the organization said in a statement.
