Malta PM Robert Abela was late to show solidarity with Ukraine but finally, he shut down Maltese airspace to Russian flights.

On 27 February shortly before 15:00, Abela announced that Maltese airspace will be closed to Russian airlines. Better late than never, but finally it’s a move in the right direction.

However, a closer look at the details shows that the airspace will be closed as of tomorrow at noon. This was reported by Flightradar24.

The airspace closure also has also exemptions for: humanitarian flights, SAR flights, other flights that have the permission of the Maltese Government, and in case of an emergency landing or an emergency overflight.

Full details on Flightradar24 here.

Abela out of options?

Robert Abela’s hand may have been forced by the EU as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen just announced that: “we are shutting down the EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft.”

Furthermore, there aren’t really any Russian airlines flying to Malta and this was picked up by BugM on Twitter:

AirMalta did or does codeshare with Russian airline Aeroflot which is listed first in its list of partners here.

In 2017, the Times of Malta reported that Air Malta moved its Malta – Moscow operation to Sheremetyevo airport’s newest terminal E in June of 2016. The airline was operating a weekly service.

Times of Malta’s story about these latest updates on Malta’s flight ban can be found here.

Are there any updates from Malta related to Russia’s war against Ukraine that I missed? Contact me here.