The consumption of aviation fuel has been significantly increased by the on-going war in Ukraine, according to a journal report published on Wednesday.
Numerous flight routes between Europe and Asia once passed over Russia and Ukraine, but since the Russian invasion of its neighbour, airlines have been using different routes.
This extends the journeys – with effects on fuel consumption and thus also on the emission of climate-damaging gases. Experts have calculated the effect and presented their results in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
Co-author Nicolas Bellouin from the University of Sorbonne in Paris says around 1,100 flights are affected per day, which contributed 8.2 million tons of climate damaging carbon dioxide (CO2) to global aviation emissions in 2023.
This corresponds to an increase of about 1% in global carbon dioxide emissions from aviation in that year.
According to the study, the biggest effect came from the closure of all Russian airspace to Western airlines. In addition, airlines no longer fly over Ukraine. Russian airlines, in turn, are banned from the airspace of the European Union, which has led to the cancellation of several routes.
A Lufthansa flight between Tokyo and Frankfurt, for example, lasted about 10 and a half hours on January 7, 2022. Then, on April 13 of that year, when the aircraft had to take a more northerly route over the Arctic, it took three hours longer. The return flight was extended from almost 10 hours to almost 12 hours because the flight route no longer went through Russia, but south of it through China.
According to the study, fuel consumption on the affected flight routes between Europe and Asia has increased by 14.8% overall. Flights between North America and Asia required 9.8% more fuel.
