The “Russian” A320 finally left Schiphol Airport | the pictures

After more than two years, the time finally came on Tuesday afternoon: the Airbus A320 previously flying for Aeroflot departed Schiphol Airport.

At around 1:20 p.m., the Airbus, registered VP-BAC, moved away from the airport apron in Schiphol-Ost, where the plane had been parked for several months. The plane underwent several checks there in recent weeks. Some papers have also been completed. The A320 is now en route from Amsterdam to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It is not yet clear what will happen to the device there.

The Airbus was detained in Schiphol on February 27, 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after it landed there after a flight from Moscow. The plane was supposed to land in Dusseldorf that day, but during the flight Germany closed its airspace to Russian planes. So the machine moved to Amsterdam, but before it could leave again, the entire European Union airspace was closed to Russian aircraft. As a result, the VP-BAC was stuck at the Dutch airport for a long time.

The A320 is owned by Irish leasing company GTLK Europe, a subsidiary of Russia's state-owned GTLK State Transport Leasing. The Irish branch of the company is currently being liquidated as part of legal proceedings and it is therefore expected that VP-BAC will be sold. In September 2023, Infrastructure and Water Management Minister Harpers gave the green light to overhaul the A320. It has now been sufficiently proven that the leasing company to which VP-BAC belongs no longer has ties with Russia and that the aircraft could be removed from the EU sanctions list for Russian aircraft. In November, the machine was transported to Schiphol-Ost, where the necessary work and engine tests were carried out in recent months.

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