DUBAI: FlyDubai, the only airline to operate direct flights from the Arabian Gulf to Belarus, said its services are continuing after a Ryanair plane was forced to land in Minsk causing a diplomatic row with the European Union.
“Flydubai flies three times a week to Minsk and the service is operating to schedule,” a flydubai spokesperson said in response to questions from Arab News. “We continue to monitor the situation.”
Gulf airlines, including Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways offer flights to Minsk via other destinations, such as Istanbul.
Belarus provoked the EU’s outrage when Belarusian flight controllers on Sunday told the crew of a Ryanair jet flying from Greece to Lithuania there was a bomb threat and instructed it to land in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, where 26-year-old journalist Raman Pratasevich was arrested along with his Russian girlfriend.
The EU responded by barring Belarusian carriers from its airspace and airports and advising European airlines to skirt Belarus. The bloc’s foreign ministers agreed Thursday to ramp up sanctions to target the country’s lucrative potash industry and other sectors of the Belarusian economy that are the main cash-earners for the government.
Ukraine will ban Belarus-registered planes from using its airspace from May 29, the infrastructure ministry said on Friday.
The RBC news outlet reported late on Thursday that Russia would allow European flights to arrive and depart via routes that bypass Belarusian airspace despite Moscow previously denying access to two carriers that skirted Belarus en route to Moscow.
Russia on Thursday withheld clearance for an Austrian Airlines Vienna-Moscow flight plan avoiding Belarus — a day after failing to approve a revised Air France Paris-Moscow route. Both flights were canceled.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is set to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at his Black Sea residence in Sochi today for talks on closer economic ties, according to the Kremlin. He said Friday before departing to Moscow that he hopes to reach an agreement with Putin on restoring the air link between Russia and Belarus that has been suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Flydubai maintains Gulf’s only flights to Belarus amid EU spat
https://arab.news/8chf4
Flydubai maintains Gulf’s only flights to Belarus amid EU spat
- Flydubai says it is 'monitoring the situation' in Belarus
- Ukraine said today it banned flights over Belarus airspace
Related
‘The future is renewables,’ Indian energy minister tells World Economic Forum
- ‘In India, I can very confidently say, affordability (of renewables) is better than fossil fuel energy,’ says Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi during panel discussion
- Renewables are an increasingly important part of the energy mix and the technology is evolving rapidly, another expert says at session titled ‘Unstoppable March of Renewables?’
BEIRUT: “The future is renewables,” India’s minister of new and renewable energy told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
“In India, I can very confidently say, affordability (of renewables) is better than fossil fuel energy,” Pralhad Venkatesh Joshi said during a panel discussion titled “Unstoppable March of Renewables?”
The cost of solar power has has fallen steeply in recent years compared with fossil fuels, Joshi said, adding: “The unstoppable march of renewables is perfectly right, and the future is renewables.”
Indian authorities have launched a major initiative to install rooftop solar panels on 10 million homes, he said. As a result, people are not only saving money on their electricity bills, “they are also selling (electricity) and earning money.”
He said that this represents a “success story” in India in terms of affordability and “that is what we planned.”
He acknowledged that more work needs to be done to improve reliability and consistency of supplies, and plans were being made to address this, including improved storage.
The other panelists in the discussion, which was moderated by Godfrey Mutizwa, the chief editor of CNBC Africa, included Marco Arcelli, CEO of ACWA Power; Catherine MacGregor, CEO of electricity company ENGIE Group; and Pan Jian, co-chair of lithium-ion battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology.
Asked by the moderator whether she believes “renewables are unstoppable,” MacGregor said: “Yes. I think some of the numbers that we are now facing are just proof points in terms of their magnitude.
“In 2024, I think it was 600 gigawatts that were installed across the globe … in Europe, close to 50 percent of the energy was produced from renewables in 2024. That has tripled since 2004.”
Renewables are an increasingly important and prominent part of the energy mix, she added, and the technology is evolving rapidly.
“It’s not small projects; it’s the magnitude of projects that strikes me the most, the scale-up that we are able to deliver,” MacGregor said.
“We are just starting construction in the UAE, for example. In terms of solar size it’s 1.5 gigawatts, just pure solar technology. So when I see in the Middle East a round-the-clock project with just solar and battery, it’s coming within reach.
“The technology advance, the cost, the competitiveness, the size, the R&D, the technology behind it and the pace is very impressive, which makes me, indeed, really say (renewables) is real. It plays a key role in, obviously, the energy demand that we see growing in most of the countries.
“You know, we talk a lot about energy transition, but for a lot of regions now it is more about energy additions. And renewables are indeed the fastest to come to market, and also in terms of scale are really impressive.”
Mutizwa asked Pan: “Are we there yet, in terms of beginning to declare mission accomplished? Are renewables here to stay?”
“I think we are on the road but (its is) very promising,” Pan replied. There is “great potential for future growth,” he added, and “the technology is ready, despite the fact that there are still a lot of challenges to overcome … it is all engineering questions. And from our perspective, we have been putting in a lot of resources and we are confident all these engineering challenges will be tackled along the way.”
Responding to the same question, Arcelli said: “Yes, I think we are beyond there on power, but on other sectors we are way behind … I would argue today that the technology you install by default is renewables.
“Is it a universal truth nowadays that renewables are the cheapest?” asked Mutizwa.
“It’s the cheapest everywhere,” Arcelli said.
