The specialized portal “Profi.Travel” interviewed representatives of travel agencies. Tatjana Smirnova, head of the Samara company “Aventura,” noted that no official letter from the airline has been received so far, but it turned out that flights booked for October were canceled.
Another interlocutor – a ticket booking specialist and travel agent from Yekaterinburg – confirmed that “Air Arabia” canceled flights on Wednesday, September 9, and “a notification will be sent shortly.”
Similar testimonies are shared by the Telegram channel “Baza.” It is indicated that tickets purchased for October are canceled, but customers only find out about this after contacting the airline.
One of the received responses states that “flights of the airline from Russian regions are canceled,” and the customer was offered a “full refund.”
The airline itself confirmed the flight cancellations and assured that passengers will be refunded for purchased tickets, writes “The Moscow Times.”
Founded in 2003, the company “Air Arabia,” the largest low-cost airline in the Middle East and North Africa, operates flights to more than 170 destinations worldwide.
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The decision to cancel flights seems to have been made after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that flights over Russia are becoming unsafe.
The Ukrainian leader warned airlines and insurers worldwide about the risks of flights to Russian airports, primarily to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other major cities.
According to him, Kyiv’s actions do not threaten “civil aviation as such,” but “there will be drones in Russian airspace, so this must be taken into account.”
Last week, Air Tanzania, Tanzania’s national airline, which only started direct flights to Moscow in July, was the first foreign airline to temporarily cancel flights to the Russian capital, citing security threats “after assessing route risks.”
One of the company’s planes flying from Zanzibar to Moscow on September 2 was diverted to Saint Petersburg when Moscow airports faced attacks by Ukrainian drones and suspended operations. Flights resumed on Tuesday.
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