Moscow Airports Lose Daily Operating Hours to Drone Alerts

Four major airports in the Moscow region have suspended operations almost daily in October, with closures lasting as long as nine hours on some days. The disruptions affect Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, Zhukovsky, and Vnukovo, grounding flights and delaying travelers as part of a sustained Ukrainian drone campaign.

The current restrictions stem from a safety procedure implemented by Rosaviatsiya, Russia's aviation authority. Known as the carpet protocol, this rule requires the immediate closure of airspace over a region or around specific airports if an aircraft violates Russian airspace, weapons are used, or unidentified objects appear in the sky. This measure imposes strict limits on all air traffic in the affected zones.

Oleksandr Laneckij, chief executive of the consultancy Friendly Avia Support, explained that the protocol treats every drone as a military threat. He compared the situation to the disruptions caused by Yemen's Houthis in Saudi airspace, noting that Ukraine's military capabilities far exceed those of the Houthis. The closure of Ukraine's own airspace since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 has set a precedent for how airspace can be managed during conflict.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy outlined this strategy in early September, stating that Ukraine would seek to cut off the airspace around Moscow and other Russian destinations. He addressed airlines, insurers, and travelers directly, declaring that Russian airspace would become completely unsafe. The following day, Ukraine sent a matching warning to the International Civil Aviation Organization, signaling its intent to make commercial flight over Russian territory risky.

Military analyst Jan Matvejev noted that Ukraine has little difficulty disrupting air traffic around Moscow, even though it has not fully closed Russian airspace as intended. He said that triggering the carpet protocol requires only simple drones without warheads or long range. Ukraine's arms industry can produce hundreds of combat-ready long-range drones daily, a capacity that allows for frequent and sustained operations.

Matvejev argued that Russian air defenses are not fully effective against these drones. He stated that if it were possible to shoot them down, Russian forces would have done so by now. He added that Russia would have deployed more air-defense troops if it had the resources available to do so.

Both experts warned about the risks to civilian flights. Laneckij said Russia might lower the threshold for declaring the carpet protocol, increasing the danger of deadly incidents. He referenced the 2024 Christmas day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, where investigators found the aircraft was hit by a Russian air-defense missile fired to counter drones, killing 38 people. Matvejev said little has changed in Russia's air-defense protocol since that event.

Matvejev explained that while the risk to aircraft from low-flying drones shot with machine guns is extremely low, missiles present a different danger. Defects that are practically unavoidable in mass production could send a missile toward a nearby airliner. He added that drones need no explosives to cause harm, as a collision with an airplane can be serious. A drone flown from Ukraine to Moscow must be fairly large, weighing dozens of kilograms.

Airports elsewhere have also been affected by the conflict. Ukrainian forces attacked Pskov airport in the summer of 2023, and drone debris fell on Sochi airport earlier this month. Russia has also struck Ukrainian airports, with Zelenskyy noting in September that Kyiv's airport and Boryspil, near the capital, were hit.

Laneckij said that whether foreign airlines keep flying to Russia will depend on the military threat, demand, and insurance costs. If insurers rate the risk as very high, they could sharply raise premiums, sending ticket prices soaring. Competition in Russia's aviation market has already shrunk because many airlines have gone out of business, which has pushed up demand for seats on the remaining foreign carriers. He concluded that whether carriers stay depends on the price they have to pay for the danger faced.