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Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

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Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#241

Post by toyg »

V-2 wrote: post #182
toyg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of the constraints on fuel, there was no realistic alternative to going down. And again, once that happened, the fact the Austrian government sent a search party says it all, no matter how hard you want to spin it.

"Because of the constraints on fuel, there was no realistic alternative to going down" Source? Wasn't it a Transatlantic flight? "And again, once that happened, the fact the Austrian government sent a search party says it all, no matter how hard you want to spin it" This doesn't contradict nor invalidate my point at all.

Look around in the various threads, this has been discussed and also in the past. The plane had barely enough range to make it back home with one refuelling stop on the way. NATO countries were closing airspace while it was in the air, even going back to Russia would have been a challenge having to fly back over the likes of Hungary - which by then could well have been closed too.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#242

Post by pydry »

VortexDream wrote: post #208
pydry wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries that refuse access to their airspace will generally send fighter jets if you violate it. The implicit threat of something going badly wrong if they did not land was still there. And, in both cases it was a dissident committing acts of public service they were after. It was NOT a terrorist. Even if you manage to convince yourself that the two actions were in no way equivalent that's not how it will play in B…

And yet permission to fly over their airspace wasn't revoked while they were in their airspace. If they had wanted to do so, they could have. They did not. So I don't see the sense in constructing this strawman of "oh but it meant they could've scrambled fighters". If Lukashenko had done the same thing France had done, the plane wouldn't have been allowed to enter Belarusian airspace. That's not what he did. What he…

shrug The net result was the same - a plane was grounded through deception so a dissident could be arrested. Nobody was hurt by either action.

I don't think Belarussians are going to split these hairs. I suspect also that pro western politicians on Belarussian TV will be goaded into defending what the US did to Morales. They are now placed in an extremely awkward position.

If we then hit the country with sanctions over this ordinary Belarussians are going to be bitter about the hypocrisy (of which they'll be made fully aware) and it will play directly into Lukashenko's hands.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#243

Post by varjag »

Aperocky wrote: post #237
motives wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel this is a fairly pedantic correction, though of course you're very correct nonetheless. My opinion is that banning all of a nations major airlines from operating in your airspace is functionally equivalent to banning that nation. Belarus is much like Kazakhstan in that the vast majority of routes from its airports are by its national airlines. Most of the routes to the EU are flown by Belavia (Belarus' nationa…

Well, I feel like it's important to point out that people can still fly direct from $nation to Europe despite the ban.

Most of flights to Europe are codeshares with Belavia, so not really.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#244

Post by tuyguntn »

standardUser wrote: post #228
tuyguntn wrote: post #225

we ended up in such situation because there are usually no consequences of governments doing bad to their citizens. UN is a joke. All sanctions are applied only against Russia, but for any other case/country what governments are usually doing are cheap words: "condemning/concerned/we are deeply ..." that's all. There is no consensus inside UN on what is good and what is bad for people, countries have veto rights, whi…

If the UN were used in the way you are suggesting, the UN wouldn't exist.

https://www.un.org/un70/en/content/history/index.html

> The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.

If UN is committed to do something good for having better living standards and human rights, then they must keep their promise and try to do something, otherwise just stop pretending being someone you are not and shutdown this organization.

I think we have passed the point in human history where local/national interests were above any other interests, now we should think about interests of humans. Be it Russian, Belarus, Palestinian, Israeli, Uighur, Armenian, black or white and so on, if human rights are violated, action should be taken and there must be a consequence for violating it, not only words thrown. US shouldn't have veto rights when rights of humans are violated, be it your best friend Israel or Saudi Arabia.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#245

Post by bobthepanda »

bellyfullofbac wrote: post #205
s_dev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia and Belarus make money from the planes flying over their airspace. They won't be collecting that money so there is at least one consequence.

Clarification: not just these 2 countries. I wonder if all countries do it.

Most of them do, but most will also waive it for flights originating or departing from said country.

Some countries go above and beyond; Russia typically grants overflight access to one airline per country, so SAS has the ability to fly over Russia while Norwegian Air never has.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#246

Post by throwawayhay »

The very sad thing is that there’s a lot of firms in Silicon Valley that do a lot of business with Belarus, totally ignoring the monstrosities of Lukashenko.

Mapbox for example, sources a considerable amount of its workforce from Minsk, and they’re little better than slaves because they can’t quit or complain or they’ll be sent to the mines.

We sit here and say that this kind of behavior is villainous, but we happily do business with those who profit off of the suffering of others. For shame.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#247

Post by pydry »

mopsi wrote: post #198
pydry wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like Morales told why he was being barred entry to four different countries' air spaces. In both cases the pilot was lied to to capture a dissident and in neither case were the passengers in danger. Lukashenko's propaganda will get a boost from this. Indeed, it's possibly what emboldened him to try it, safe in the knowledge that Europe and the US could only condemn it hypocritically. The West loses moral aut…

Morales-Shmorales. No-one cares about the games governments play with their private jets. This was an unprecedented attack on public scheduled intra-European passenger service that every regular person may end up using. This is a whole different category and that's why the whataboutism isn't working this time and the standard "losing moral authority" talking points sound particularly shallow and unconvicing.

Perhaps not to you. I think they'll make effective use of whataboutism on Belarussian state TV and newspapers. The similarities make it almost too easy for them.

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#248

Post by [deleted] »

thinkingemote wrote: post #31
golergka wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European diplomats being "strongly concerned" have long become a running joke here in Russia: https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned I sincerely hope that this statement finally gets backed up by some decisive action that can put real pressure on these dictators, but I don't get my hopes up.

I know that people can joke about the west in Russia but are people allowed to make jokes about their own government in Russia and in the associated eastern european states? Is it like China yet? I'm guessing not as there's no visible list of banned words and phrases, but we don't see (in HN) much criticism of Russia, Belarus from there, just attacks on the hypocrisy of the West. Do you see it headed towards China, w…

[deleted]

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#249

Post by itsyaboi »

liaukovv wrote: post #142
trhway wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think you are mistaken here. Bat'ka in this context is more like Bat'ka Mahno, ie. a leader outside of formal rules and leading more by personal power like a leader of a gang or a rebellion (or for example in Belarussian context - "Bat'ka Minay", a commander in WWII Belarussian guerilla resistance https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A8%D0%BC%D1%8B%D1%80%D1%91... ). > it was originally used to mock Belarusian for supp…

It's belarusian word for father

A better translation (that includes the connotations behind the word) would be "pops".

Re: Baltic airlines reroute flights to avoid Belarus airspace

#250

Post by queuebert »

input_sh wrote: post #95
tacker2000 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a EU citizen, this is quite hilarious. The EU is so toothless it hurts.

Couldn't agree more. The pattern is basically: 1. High-ranking official says they're "gravely/deeply/very concerned" within the first 24-48h. 2. Some EU parliament member mentions the problem within two or three weeks, shaming other members. A clip of this few minutes long speech gets shared all over social media. 3. Absolutely nothing happens until everyone forgets about the issue. Over and over again, issue after i…

Is this better or worse than the US pattern of sanctions and drone strikes?
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