Aeroflot planes forbidden to fly over Canada

'Our planes will be restricted from flying over Canada from November 1. Today's flight from Moscow to Toronto was postponed as a result,' Deputy Director of Aeroflot Lev Koshlyakov told Echo Moskvi radio station today. He said this is linked to the introduction of new flight safety standards. All airplanes on international flights now have to be equipped with a bullet-proof door to the cockpit and a special video system for observing the situation in the passenger compartment.

Mr Koshlyakov said that all Russian airplanes were equipped with bullet-proof doors a long time ago but the Canadian authorities have decided to impose restrictions anyway. 'As a result we have changed our flights and now offer flights to the US by different routes. This has not brought any changes to out timetable,' he remarked. According to Mr Koshlyakov, flights to Canada will now be less frequent and passengers will be informed of this. 'These restrictions will not cause us any significant expense although the Canadian authorities took this decision rather suddenly and now we will have to redistribute our funds. We will have to spend more on working with transit passengers, for example,' he said.

He said that Aeroflot is the only Russian airline to offer regular flights to Canada. Russia has replied by imposing restrictions on Canadian airline Air Canada.

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