Young Russians reacted to the partial mobilization by President Vladimir Putin by leaving the country in droves. According to the latest estimates, around 400,000 men have already left the country. Long queues formed at the land borders with Finland, Kazakhstan and Georgia.
In the seven days following the September 21 conscription order, international flight bookings from Russia rose 27 percent compared to the week before. The proportion of single tickets rose from 47 percent to 73 percent, as figures from the analysis company “Forward Keys” show.
Bookings to Tbilisi increased by 654 percent, to Almaty by 435, to Belgrade by 206, to Baku by 201, to Astana by 187, to Bishkek by 149, to Istanbul by 128, to Tel Aviv by 127, to Dubai by 104 and to Yerevan by 94 percent.
The Russian authorities are trying to stop the exodus. Last weekend, this also meant that several flights to foreign holiday destinations at the airports in Yekaterinburg, Nizhni Novgorod, Sochi and Ufa were only able to take off with delays of several hours.
The reason is that some crew members were withdrawn from their flight, reports the Association of Russian Tour Operators “Atos”.
The authorities would have banned the men from leaving the country. The delays were sometimes up to 24 hours.
The airlines were not always able to muster replacement crews immediately. Among other things, flights to Antalya and Yerevan were affected.
An airline has previously responded. “Red Wings” has decided to no longer use pilots under the age of 35 on international flights. In this way, it can prevent situations with detained crew members shortly before departure.
The industry generally fears that partial mobilization will result in bloodletting. Aeroflot and Co. could lose up to half of the employees.
But administrative staff and computer scientists are also at risk. The industry is therefore trying to get an exemption in order not to get serious operational problems due to staff shortages.
This article was written by Stefan Eiselin
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The original of this article “Russian authorities stop crews for partial mobilization” comes from aeroTelegraph.
