Instead of non-stop to Russia: Pegasus flew Izmir-Helsinki-Istanbul-Moscow

Pegasus Air actually wanted to fly from Izmir to Moscow-Domodedovo on December 17, 2022 with the Airbus A320neo TC-NBD. Due to bad weather, the pilots could not land in the Russian capital and diverted to Helsinki.

Not trying it at another Russian airport turned out to be a fatal mistake. They waited about four hours in the Finnish capital, but were not allowed to fly to Moscow because a special permit would have been required due to the sanctions against Russia. So the decision was made to set course for Istanbul first.

The Airbus A320neo landed there on December 18, 2022 at around 8:45 a.m. local time. Only in the afternoon did we continue to Moscow-DME. The affected passengers complained in social media posts that the airline had not served them any drinks or food free of charge for more than ten hours.