BIS Issues Denial Order for Belarusian Airline
The Bureau of Industry and Security on June 16 suspended the export privileges of Belavia Belarusian Airlines, the country’s state-owned national airline, for violating U.S. export controls against Belarus. BIS issued a 180-day temporary denial order for Belavia, which bans it from participating in transactions subject to the Export Administration Regulations.
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BIS said Belavia provided passenger and cargo flight services on U.S.-origin aircraft after the agency issued an April rule that removed a license exception availability for certain aircraft in Belarus and imposed a license requirement for those planes (see 2204080062). Despite the rule, Belavia continued to fly its planes in and out of both Belarus and Russia, BIS said, and also to and from Georgia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The denial order, which may be renewed after 180 days, contains a list of the flights with aircraft serial numbers, tail numbers and departure and arrival cities and dates.
“Just as Belarus is lawlessly supporting Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine, its national airline Belavia is failing to obey our export laws,” said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s assistant secretary for export enforcement. “This temporary denial order will prevent Belavia from leveraging any U.S. technology to operate its fleet of airplanes, thus making it more difficult for the airline to keep flying.”
The denial order is the first BIS enforcement action against a Belarusian airline under the agency’s Russia and Belarus export controls. BIS in recent weeks has issued temporary denial orders against several Russian planes and airlines, including Rossiya Airlines (see 2205200008), Aviastar (see 2204210043) and Aeroflot, Azur Air and UTair (see 2204070012).