Major Russian airline says it has received OK to fly over North Korea

An image of an S7 aircraft provided by the company / Courtesy of NK News

Russia’s largest private airline says it has received permission to fly over North Korea, currently operating two routes that cross through the country’s usually restricted airspace.

A spokesperson for S7 Airlines said on Wednesday that the firm has relied on North Korean airspace for its Vladivostok-Shanghai route since last November, confirming previous NK News reporting.

S7 also flies over North Korea on its Bangkok-Vladivostok route, the representative told NK News.

“Permission to use North Korea's airspace was obtained through standard procedures for ensuring transit flights,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The routes were “determined by operational efficiency” and “designed based on North Korea's aeronautical information,” they added, stressing that the move follows “international procedures and standards, with strict compliance with flight safety requirements.”

NK News reported in Nov. 2025 that S7 had started flying directly over North Korea on the Vladivostok-Shanghai route, rather than detouring through Chinese airspace like other foreign airlines.

Russian carriers like Rossiya Airlines have also continued to route through China when flying between Vladivostok and Shanghai, Flightradar24 records show.

Aviation expert Ed Condit has assessed that North Korea likely collects overflight fees from S7, describing it as a source of income for North Korea prior to sanctions.

S7 did not comment on the fee arrangement in its statement.

NK News previously found that Russia’s Yakutia Airlines agreed to increase its annual overflight payments to North Korea between 2015-2018, with the last known sum reaching nearly $185,000.

U.N. Security Council resolutions introduced in 2017 do not explicitly bar flights over North Korea, but payments for overflight rights could involve bank transfers that violate sanctions.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Nordwind Airlines resumed direct Moscow-Pyongyang flights for the first time in decades last July.

Russia has been bankrolling the flights, initially shelling out about $1.54 million in subsidies, although reports indicate that many of the flights have operated with almost no passengers onboard.

Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport has recently added Nordwind flights to North Korea’s east coast city of Wonsan to its seasonal schedule for the first time.

The first flight to the North Korean resort city is slated for April 21, while Nordwind’s website lists a Moscow-Wonsan flight (N4-6107) that departs at 6:55 p.m. local time and arrives the following day at 9:05 a.m. KST.

Wonsan is home to a massive new beach resort that opened last year, and Russian nationals are the only international tourists who have been allowed to visit to date.

Read the article at NK News.