On March 1, President Biden announced the closure of US airspace to all Russian flights. According to the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), the restrictions are scheduled to be fully effective by the end of today, March 2, 2022. The restrictions will be implemented in two ways. First, the Federal Aviation Administration will issue a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) that will prohibit Russian airlines and operators from using US airspace. As of the publication of…
On May 28, 2021, the Biden Administration issued a press release (“Press Release”) confirming the re-imposition of sanctions on certain Belarusian state-owned enterprises (“SOEs”) (presaged by the issuance of wind down Belarus General License 2H on April 19, 2021) and suspending the application of the 2019 US-Belarus Air Services Agreement (“2019 USB Agreement”) in response to the Belarusian government’s apparent forced diversion of a commercial flight to Minsk on May 23. The Press Release also…
On January 12, 2021, the US Department of Commerce issued a final rule (the “Final Rule”) amending the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to implement recent licensing review policy changes for exports of US-origin unmanned aerial systems (“UAS”), also known as “drones.” Our prior blog posts on UAS export policy developments are available here and here. The Final Rule implements the more flexible export license review policy applicable to a specific subset of UAS with maximum…
On August 13, 2020, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement requesting that the US Department of Transportation (“DOT”) suspend private charter flights to all Cuban airports. This action will suspend all charter flights between the United States and Cuba over which the DOT exercises jurisdiction, except for authorized public charter flights to and from Havana and other private charter flights authorized for limited purposes. Secretary Pompeo’s statement cites the Administration’s intent to deny…