Preliminary Estimation of war Impact in Ukraine on the Global Air Transportation

Russian military invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 caused the closing of Ukrainian airspace for civil aviation and limited the use of Belarusian and Russian airspaces. The geometry of closed airspace location makes a serious impact on the global air transportation system. Many flights have been canceled due to closed airspace and special restrictions on the airlines. Also, trajectories of transit flights have been re-planned to avoid entering the closed airspace. All closed airspaces together make a barrier along the Eastern boundary of the European Union that seriously caused direct flight connections between European airports located above 50th N latitude and Asian airports. Also, a significant impact was on polar flights from North to South directions. In the paper, we provide a preliminary study of the impact of overall closed airspace on global air traffic. Based on a statistical analysis of global air traffic flows a distribution of canceled passenger flights has been predicted for seven weeks. Based on the prediction, accumulated losses in total trajectories length, flight time, available seats, and available seat-kilometer have been estimated for flights connected with closed Ukrainian airports. The problem of transit flights has been evaluated in particular examples. Statistical analysis of efficient and re-planned airplanes trajectories gives mean values for the time of delay and makes it possible to estimate extra fuel consumption. Significant fuel consumption at the re-planned trajectory will cause an increase in tickets prices and increased carbon dioxide emissions.