Backlash Of Sanction On Russia Must Not Lead To Sanctions On Everyone

moon of  alabama

More than a year ago I was wrong in predicting that the backlash from sanctions would push the 'west' to accept Russia's demands.

The Sanction Backlash Will Push The 'West' To Accept Russia's Demands - Mar 9, 2022

The Anglo-Saxons prevented that - at least so far.

But parts of my predictions were still correct:

The first [map] shows the countries which banned Russian airplanes from their airspace. Russia in turn denied its airspace to operators from those countries. It will cost quite a bit for U.S. and EU airlines as their flight times and cost to and from Asia, which typically fly through Russian airspace, will now increase. Carriers from Asian countries will now easily out-compete U.S. and European airlines on these routes.

That has indeed happened. U.S. carriers have lost much of their traffic to Asia to Asian airlines as their flight time on those routes are now shorter and their prices cheaper.

But instead of appealing to the U.S. government to take back the sanctions, which would be good for them and their customers, they ask to sanction the Asian carriers.

Banned From Russian Airspace, U.S. Airlines Look to Restrict Competitors

Unable to fly through Russian airspace because of the war in Ukraine, U.S. airlines are stepping up a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and at the White House to address what they say is a growing problem: They are losing business to foreign competitors who can take passengers between the United States and Asia faster and more cheaply.

Russia closed its airspace for U.S. and European carriers not because of the war in Ukraine but because the U.S. and its NATO proxies closed their airspace for Russian carriers. To mislead about that, as the opener of NYT piece does, is a disservice to the reader.

Flights on U.S. carriers from the U.S. to India, which previously crossed Siberia, now have to take other routes:

Airlines for America estimated the lost annual market share of U.S. carriers at a collective $2 billion per year.

But for passengers who chose the right airline the issue makes no difference:

As of Wednesday, the outbound leg of an April round-trip journey from New York’s Kennedy Airport to New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport cost about $1,500 and was estimated at 13 hours and 40 minutes on Air India, according to Travelocity. The most comparable flight on a U.S. carrier: a $1,740 American Airlines trip with estimated flying time of 14 hours and 55 minutes.

The consumer's choice here is obvious.

“Foreign airlines using Russian airspace on flights to and from the U.S. are gaining a significant competitive advantage over U.S. carriers in major markets, including China and India,” the presentation, dated February, said. “This situation is directly to the benefit of foreign airlines and at the expense of the United States as a whole, with fewer connections to key markets, fewer high paying airline jobs” and a dent in the overall economy.
....
Now airlines are pressing the White House and Congress to fix the problem by subjecting foreign carriers from nations not already banned from Russian airspace to the same restrictions applied to U.S. airlines, effectively forcing them to fly the same routes as their American competitors.

The Biden administration should “take action to ensure that foreign carriers overflying Russia do not depart, land or transit through U.S. airports,” said Marli Collier, an Airlines for America spokeswoman.

The proposal appears to have gained traction with the Transportation Department, which recently drafted an order that would ban Chinese carriers that fly passengers to the United States from flying through Russian airspace, according to three people who were briefed on the order.

In effect the transport department, lead by dimwit mayor Pete Buttigieg, says: "F** the consumer. Just take away the good choices they have."

Air India and other Asian carriers would not be happy about such steps. It is not their fault that they can still cross Russia while U.S. carriers no longer can. The government of the countries that would have such rules imposed on their airlines by the U.S. would see that as a quite unfriendly step.

Making flights more expensive for everyone, as the planned steps would do, would also hurt U.S. tourism and general commerce.

The New York Times writers then try to argue that there is a security issue. U.S. citizens on an Air India flight making an emergency landing in Russia could somehow be endangered. The cases they use to argue that are nonsense:

In 2014, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over Ukraine, killing 298 people.
...
In 2021, a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was diverted to Belarus, a close Kremlin ally, after officials in that country alerted air traffic controllers to a supposed bomb threat on the plane. Their true purpose, U.S. prosecutors said, was to arrest a dissident journalist who was a passenger by inventing a false safety issue.
...
Last year, the American basketball star Brittney Griner was detained at an airport near Moscow and later sentenced to nine years in a penal colony for carrying vape cartridges of hashish oil in her luggage. She was freed in December.

A flight over an active battlefield in Ukraine, some murky issue in Belarus and a U.S. woman who admitted that she had smuggled drugs into Russia are not demonstrations of danger for U.S. passengers on Air India over Russia. Even if such flight would have to land in Russia there would be no trouble. Russia is not at war with the U.S. and private U.S citizens in Russia are safe.

To close the airspace for Russian airliners was simply a dumb idea. During a prank call European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde admitted to a fake Zelensky that sanctions on Russia have failed.

Sanctions that do not work, or even caused a backlash, should be lifted immediately a-nd not be extended into sanctions on everyone.

Posted by b on March 18, 2023 at 17:22 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/03/backlash-of-sanction-on-russia-must-not-lead-to-sanctions-on-everyone.html#more