Moscow Airports: Nine Hours a Day Lost to Drone Alerts
Four Moscow-area airports have suspended operations for hours at a time this month as Ukrainian drones trigger Russian airspace closures.
By Malik Salazar ·
Travelers booking flights through Moscow are facing near-daily interruptions this month. Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, Zhukovsky and Vnukovo airports have paused operations almost every day in October, with some closures stretching to nine hours, according to the independent investigative outlet Agentstvo.
The shutdowns come from a standing procedure at Rosaviatsiya, Russia's aviation authority. The so-called "carpet" protocol closes airspace over a region immediately after an aircraft violates Russian airspace, weapons are used, or unidentified objects appear overhead. Strict limits then bind all traffic in the area.
Oleksandr Laneckij, chief executive of the consultancy Friendly Avia Support, said the trigger threshold is low. "Essentially, every drone poses a military threat," he told DW. He compared the disruption to the Houthis' impact on Saudi airspace and said Ukraine's military capabilities far exceed theirs. Military analyst Jan Matvejev said setting off the protocol requires only simple drones without warheads or long range, and added that Russia would have deployed more air-defense troops if it had them. "If it were possible to shoot them down, they would have done so by now," he said.
The pattern follows a stated goal from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In early September he said Ukraine would work to cut off the airspace around Moscow and other Russian destinations, telling airlines, insurers and travelers that "Russian airspace will become completely unsafe." Ukraine sent a warning to the International Civil Aviation Organization the next day. Ukraine's own airspace has been closed since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Laneckij said Russia could lower the threshold for declaring the carpet protocol, raising the danger of a deadly incident like the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight on Christmas Day 2024. Investigators say that aircraft was struck by a Russian air-defense missile fired to counter drones, killing 38 people. Matvejev said little has changed in Russia's air-defense protocol since then.
Whether foreign airlines keep flying to Russia depends on three factors, Laneckij said: the military threat, demand and insurance costs. If insurers rate the risk as very high, they could sharply raise premiums, pushing ticket prices up. Competition in Russia's aviation market has already shrunk because many airlines have gone out of business, which has pushed up demand for seats on the remaining foreign carriers. "Whether they stay or not depends on the price they have to pay for the danger faced," he said.
Airports outside Moscow have also been hit. Ukrainian forces attacked the Pskov airport in the summer of 2023, and drone debris fell on Sochi airport earlier this month. Russia has struck Ukrainian airports in return: in September, Zelenskyy said Kyiv's airport and Boryspil, near the capital, were hit.
