The Russian Federation lost its seat on the ICAO board of directors on Saturday. It failed to get at least 86 votes. After the vote, Russia requested a procedural review, as the request for a repeat was rejected.

The IACO General Assembly will take place in Montreal until October 7, 2022. A total of 193 nations belong to this organization. The governing body consists of representatives from 36 states. So far, Russia has also been a member of the Board of Directors.

The fact that the representative of the Russian Federation asked for the vote to be repeated caused incomprehension among many member states. For example, a French participant said: "If we have votes in our countries and we don't like the result, we don't ask for another vote".

"We would like to express our regret at the result of the election," said the Russian representative. "We see this as a purely political move that has nothing to do with Russia's position in the field of civil aviation." Until now, Russia has been seen as an important aviation nation and therefore had a more or less permanent seat on the governing body. Formally, one had to stand for re-election at periodic intervals. This time the necessary majority could not be obtained.

Behind the deselection is not only the military invasion of Ukraine, but also the fact that hundreds of aircraft were not returned to the lessors. This is considered illegal by the majority of ICOA members. Moscow denies that the machines were "confiscated". Another point of criticism is that the affected aircraft were transferred to the Russian register without the consent of the rightful owners. This would conflict with parts of the Chicago Accords.