Russia and Germany play hardball on cargo traffic rights

© Sergey Kelin

Russian and German negotiators are meeting today in Moscow for the latest round in the ongoing saga of bilateral air traffic rights, which has for the past few years taken on the look and feel of a tit-for-tat dispute between unfriendly neighbours. As this useful primer from Cargo Forwarder explains, Russian carriers want to be able to operate increasing numbers of transatlantic flights out of Germany, while the Germans want more overflight rights above Siberia for their services between Europe and Asia.