A Ghost of vengeance emerges. The Russo-Ukrainian War results in airspace closures. Meanwhile, Spring Break!

For the week of February 28, 2022:

Flight of the Valkyries: The "Ghost Pilot" emerges as a hero

The Ghost of Kyiv. The evocative name trending on Twitter and newsfeeds refers to a Ukrainian MIG-29 pilot who shot down six Russian jets in the first hours of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

If accurate, it makes this pilot the first ACE of the War. So far, there has been no confirmation that the "Ghost of Kyiv" truly exists, although the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, tweeted a photo of what he said was the pilot last Friday. Additionally, official Ukraine government officials are also tweeting about "the Ghost":

Any hard evidence of the pilot seems to be debunked online. We know that the Ukrainian defense officials stated that seven Russian aircraft were downed last week. Whether six of these interceptions were by a single pilot seems unlikely.

But that may not be the point in the final analysis.

What cannot be denied is that the idea of "The Ghost of Kyiv" has captured aviation's attention around the globe and become a symbol of resistance by staunch supporters of Ukraine. In the replies to the posts about the alleged ace's exploits, many users express their admiration and hope that the Ghost will carry on taking the fight to the superior Russian air force.

Maybe the Ghost of Kyiv is just a fantasy, but for those of us in aviation, he (or she) is a hero of aerial combat not seen since the "Red Baron."

(Editorial Note: As Sun Zsu said, all warfare is based on perception.)

Delta Airlines suspends business with Aeroflot as NATO countries bar Russia from its airspace.

Delta Air Lines said Friday that it is suspending ties with Russian carrier Aeroflot as the fallout from Russia's initiation of war in Ukraine continues to spread.

The Delta/Aeroflot partnership allowed customers to book seats on each other's flights.

"Delta has withdrawn our codeshare services operated in conjunction with Russian national airline, Aeroflot, effective immediately," Delta said in a statement. "We have removed our code from Aeroflot-operated services beyond Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and removed Aeroflot's code from Delta-operated services from Los Angeles and New York-JFK. Accommodations will be made for customers affected by these changes."

The UK last Thursday barred state-owned Aeroflot from flying into the country; Russia retaliated by closing its airspace to all British carriers.

(As of the time when I was writing this: the US. Transportation Department did not announce any plans or directives to close US airspace to Russian carriers.)

Several European nations (Italy, Norway, France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, and the Netherlands) along with Canada moved on Sunday, (February 27, 2022) to deny Russian carriers access to their airspace. The UK, Ireland, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia had already taken the step to close their airspace to Russian planes by Saturday, severely limiting Russia's options for flying west.

The airspace closures are redrawing the route map for Russian jets, resulting in longer journeys, which use significantly more fuel and cost more for the airlines to operate, when Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has pushed oil prices higher. The situation will become far more challenging for Russia now that the EU has closed its airspace, almost wholly blocking most flight paths west.

Meanwhile: Apparently, everyone is flying again for Spring Break

US airports were the busiest since Thanksgiving over Presidents Day weekend, a sign that leisure travel continues to recover as COVID cases fall further.

The Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 8.4 million people from Friday through Monday (last week), more than double the number from a year ago but down 7.5% from the 9 million people the TSA screened in 2020, a month before declaring Covid-19 a pandemic.

Two years into the pandemic, a pretty clear pattern has emerged: After every wave of infections comes a wave of travel. Now that the Omicron wave is subsiding, the demand for travel is surging again. 

Earlier this month, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) updated its economic modeling with predictions that US travel and tourism would exceed pre-pandemic levels by 6.2%, accounting for almost $2 trillion in US gross domestic product. In Europe, the council's data shows that summer 2022 bookings have already surpassed 2021 levels by at least 80%.

Misty Ewing Belles, vice president of travel agent consortium Virtuoso, told Bloomberg that summer bookings are already accelerating, bucking the trend of last-minute travel that dominated the past two years of pandemic uncertainty. In the UK, where vaccinated travelers no longer need to provide pre-arrival Covid-19 test results, Ryanair's Michael O'Leary recently said that he expected summer 2022 to yield 115% of the passenger volumes that the airline recorded pre-pandemic in 2019.

Requiem in terra pax

As the last story, breaking as I write this on Sunday afternoon, it appears that the largest cargo plane in the world, the Antonov An-225 Mriya (pictured flying over St. Michael's Monastery), was destroyed in the conflict by Russian forces attacking Ukraine. The Ukrainian-made Mriya was destroyed by artillery when the hangar was struck and caught fire at Hostomel airport near Kyiv, according to a representative of Ukrainian state arms manufacturer Ukroboronprom.

The Mriya was the largest aircraft in the world and is the only aircraft that featured six turbofan engines. It was able to transport up to 275 tons of cargo (the rough equivalent of carrying 52 adult elephants), including single pieces weighing up to 200 tons over short and medium-haul distances. The Mriya was designed with an overall size that stretches almost as far as a football field from nose to tail (93 yards) and wingtip to wingtip (96 yards), and had a maximum take-off weight of up to 1.4 million pounds (about 700 tons), it dwarfs its nearest western competitors, the C5 Galaxy, and the 747 Dreamlifter.

Only one AN-225 Mriya was ever completed. A second version of the aircraft began production in the 1980s, but the project was abandoned after over 20 years and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

During the COVID pandemic, the Mriya was leveraged by cargo companies shipping massive amounts of medical supplies to places like Namibia. We had a client who was a cargo broker leverage the Mriya several times to fly PPE and other medical materials to Africa and the Middle East.

This is yet another tragic loss in the dark days of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The plane is estimated to cost roughly 300 million dollars to build.

UPDATED INFORMATION: 2/28/2022 at 9:00 CST

Note: Editorial Content this morning after being contacted by people saying the plane is not destroyed. I try to report information that is accurate - but if you have information - by all means send it to me and I'll review it.

I've had some questions as to if this story is true. I do believe it is true. Obviously I don't have access to NTM photography with a BDA... but Maxar has been sharing images with the news networks. Here's one...

There is also drone footage that suggests it was on fire:

Now, is it impossible to fake these images? No, of course not. But based on what has been reported by Ukrainian ministerial sources, the fact that Antonov hasn't confirmed it isn't something that changes my mind that the plane was hit and destroyed by artillery fire.

Maxar has also released other imagery of the airport:

It looks like the airport was attacked with artillery in an attack designed to render it unusable. This is a "good news" and "bad news" situation.

The good news is - it would appear that Russian forces haven't taken the airport, despite Putin's claims to the contrary. You don't shell an airport you've already secured. The bad news is - they are shelling the airport and apparently dropping paratroopers and have a mechanized infantry column going up against the Ukrainian defenders of the airport. Ukrainian officials claimed that Ukraine special forces (Alpha Group) faced an armored column of Russian hardware on Saturday and repelled it. This shelling last Sunday could have been retaliatory to try and soften up the special forces troops before another offensive.

The Russian undoubtedly wants the airport, so I doubt sincerely they'll give up anytime soon. It's strategic to them to control it.

Unfortunately, the AN225 appears to be collateral damage of the conflict. I'm happy to look at any credible photographic evidence that it's intact.

About "The View from 30,000 Feet":

"The View from 30,000 Feet" is a weekly newsletter distributed on LinkedIn that covers news stories we think you might have missed about aviation, aerospace, and travel. It is produced by The Aviation Agency, an advertising agency that focuses exclusively on aviation, aerospace, and defense clients.

The views expressed in the newsletter are those of the Executive Editor (Bryan Del Monte) and are based on reports found across the Internet and from sources we think are reliable. If you have an idea or a contribution, feel free to write to stories@theaviationagency.com. If you're a media source and you'd like our thoughts for a story, reach out.

As always, thanks for reading.