Moscow airports restrict flight operations

Temporary airspace security restrictions imposed across Moscow airports prevented more than 10 inbound passenger flights from landing, forcing diversions to alternate regional hubs while several international flights turned back mid-air. Inbound services to Domodedovo from Dushanbe, Yerevan, Kaliningrad, and Sochi were rerouted to Kazan and Sheremetyevo, while 11 Vnukovo-bound flights from Istanbul, Antalya, Izmir, Dubai, Tbilisi, and Bodrum were diverted to Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, and Minsk.

Additionally, four flights operating from Turkey altered course in flight to head back: two services from Antalya reversed over Polish airspace toward Istanbul, a Bodrum-originating flight turned around over Lithuania, and a further Istanbul departure flew back to its origin. Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency confirmed that operations at Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky were temporarily halted to safeguard civil aviation safety, without specifying the precise nature of the alert or when restrictions would be fully lifted.