Airlines’ Russian boycott over

Press, 30 September 1983, Page 6

Airlines’ Russian boycott over

NZPA London A two-week ban on flights in and out of the Soviet Union by Western Governments, ended about midday yesterday, but a 30-day boycott by some pilots was continuing. Pilots’ organisations said earlier that their boycott, which stemmed from the Soviet downing of a Korean commercial airliner, would be reviewed after 30 days and might be extended to 60 days. But pilots generally were pleased with the decision of the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Montreal to have its own investigation of the disaster. The 1.C.A.0. also demanded changes in interception procedures and a ban on shooting at civil aircraft. A statement was awaited from the board of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ meeting this week in London.

Clas Lagerlund, president of the Swedish Pilots' Association which joined the 30-day ban while the Swedish Government did not, said that it was “very happy” about the organisation’s action and felt that the ban could now be called off.

“If the Soviets have not got the message by now, they never will,” he said.

The disaster on September 1 killed all 269 aboard when the Boeing 747 jumbo jet was shot down after entering Soviet airspace near the Sea of Japan. The Soviets insist, despite denials, that it was on a spying mission.

“Perhaps after this boycott the Soviet Government and the military forces will be more careful about doing

things like that, but they set their course 60 years ago,” said Captain Walter Gubser, of the Swiss Pilots' Association.

He “felt bad” about resuming flights because of the international air line pilots' original call for a 60dav ban. “The political priorities are so different and you can’t do anything against it. It’s like being helpless,” he said.

Western airlines and the Soviet airline, Aeroflot, were affected by the official sanctions that started on September 15, which were imposed on September 9 by a dozen governments of the 16-nation N.A.T.O. alliance meeting in Brussels, including the United States. Four N.A.T.O. countries — France, Greece, Spain, and Turkey - refused to join the sanctions, but Japan, a non-member, did. Japan also lifted the suspension yesterday, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, Mr Masaharu Gotoda, announced, saying that it had “accomplished its objectives.”

Aeroflot charter flights to Japan remain suspended and Japanese Government employees were told not to use Aeroflot services.

There are normally 27 flights a week from N.A.T.O. countries to the Soviet Union. The bans inconvenienced anyone with urgent business there and upset holiday plans of several thousand tourists, who had to postpone departure dates, divert to other points or take trains.

A spokesman for Japan Air Lines, the only carrier from Tokyo to Moscow, said on Wednesday that 2700

people with tickets to the Soviet capital and beyond had been affected during the ban. Of the total, 320 did go to Moscow after J.A.L. first flew them to other European cities. Meanwhile, Canada said that the Soviet Union had demanded that it pay damages for suspending Aeroflot’s lancing privileges. The Foreign Secretary, Mr Allan MacEachen, said that the demand was “rather preposterous,” and the Canadian Ambassador to Moscow, Mr Geoffrey Pearson, rejected it as “totally without foundation” when a Soviet Foreign Ministry official presented it on Wednesday. Canadian officials said that the Soviets had asserted they were entitled to compensation for “material damages” because of what they considered Canada’s violation of a 1966 bilateral air agreement. Officials did not say what specific damages the Soviets were claiming. Mr MacEachen criticised the Soviet Union for “its refusal to acknowledge any responsibility for payment of compensation” to the families of the people killed. Ten Canadians were among the dead. In New York, Korean Air Lines has asked a Federal panel to combine and consider at once, lawsuits seeking billions of United States dollars from K.A.I. for the survivors of the victims. The airline last week asked the judicial panel on multidistrict litigation to transfer the suits, filed in Nety York, California, Michigan, and Washington, to the United States District Court in Washington.