By David Shepardson

(Reuters) -The chairman of the Senate Overseas Relations Committee and the committee’s high Republican urged the Biden administration to halt Chinese language airways and different non-American carriers from flying over Russia on U.S. routes.

Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat, and James Risch, the committee’s high Republican, in a letter seen by Reuters urged the Biden administration to make sure no industrial airline overflying Russian territory arrives or departs from a U.S. airport.

It additionally inspired the administration to “strongly and publicly discourage U.S. individuals, residents, and everlasting residents from touring on flights over Russian territory.”

U.S. airways and different international carriers are barred from flying over Russia. Russia banned airways from the USA from overflights after the U.S. barred Russia flights in March 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.

“A further byproduct of the present scenario is that it places U.S. airways at a aggressive drawback relative to airways from different nations prepared to do enterprise with Russia,” the senators wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that was copied to White Home’s nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan.

The State Division declined to remark.

U.S. air carriers at present serve Shanghai from the USA via a cease in Incheon, South Korea, whereas Chinese language carriers serve the USA straight, flying via Russian airspace.

The Chinese language Embassy in Washington didn’t instantly remark.

Airways for America, which represents American Airways (NASDAQ:), United Airways, Delta Air Strains (NYSE:) and different carriers, praised the letter that “underscores our business’s long-standing issues concerning Russian overflights, which have put U.S. airways – passenger and cargo – at a direct aggressive drawback.”

The group echoed the senators “name for the administration to take pressing motion to make sure that international carriers who’re overflying Russia don’t depart, land or transit via U.S. airports.”

The senators need the Biden administration to ban U.S. authorities personnel on official journey from taking flights recognized to make use of Russian airspace.

“The danger to Individuals flying over Russian airspace is actual, as demonstrated by Russian-backed separatists that shot down a Malaysian Airways flight, killing all 298 passengers on board, or the federal government of Belarus, utilizing as a pretense a false-bomb alert, ordered a Ryanair flight over its territory to land in order that it might seize and detain a selected passenger,” the senators wrote.

“Proactive motion taken by the Administration now would defend Individuals from these vital dangers, in addition to closing off a funding supply to the Russian authorities and addressing an inequity that places U.S. corporations at a drawback to international competitors.”