Several airlines said on Monday they would avoid Belarusian airspace after Belarus scrambled a warplane to intercept a Ryanair jetliner and arrest a dissident journalist in an act denounced by Western powers as “state piracy”. The three Baltic states said Belarusian airspace should be declared “unsafe” and - as regional tensions mounted - Belarus and Latvia said they were expelling each other’s ambassadors. Latvian airline airBaltic and Scandinavian airline SAS said they would stop using Belarusian airspace, and Cyprus-registered Avia Solutions said its Lithuania-based airlines would follow suit. Lithuania's transport minister, Marius Skuodis, said Poland's LOT and Hungarian airline Wizzair would also not use Belarusian airspace and said all flights to and from Lithuanian airports must from midnight GMT avoid Belarusian airspace. Belarus says it acted in response to a bomb threat on the flight, which turned out to be a false alarm.

Source: The Star May 24, 2021 17:26 UTC