The United States will follow the European Union and Canada in banning Russian flights from its airspace, President Joe Biden said, in a move likely to trigger Russian retaliation.
United Airlines and United Parcel Service (UPS) said they had suspended flying over Russian airspace, joining other major US carriers Delta Air Lines and American Airlines.
"I am announcing that we will join our allies in closing off American airspace to all Russian flights, further isolating Russia and adding an additional squeeze on their economy," Biden said in his State of the Union address.
The White House had held extensive talks with US airlines about the issue in recent days.The ban will take effect by the end of Wednesday.
Russian flights were already effectively barred from US destinations for the most part in recent days because of bans on the use of Canadian and European airspace.
The European Union said Tuesday it was speaking to US counterparts about extending the ban as it gave more details of the EU's closure of airspace to Russian aircraft imposed after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Airlines already face potentially lengthy blockages of key east-west flight corridors after the EU and Moscow issued tit-for-tat airspace bans.
Global supply chains, already hit hard by the pandemic, will face increasing disruption and cost pressure from the closure of the skies which will affect over a fifth of air freight.
Hardest hit are likely to be Russian carriers, which make up approximately 70 per cent of the flights between Russia and the EU.
Transport between Europe and North Asian destinations like Japan, South Korea and China is in the front line of disruption after reciprocal bans barred European carriers from flying over Siberia and prevented Russian airlines from flying to Europe.
Airlines responsible for moving around 20 per cent of the world's air cargo are affected by those bans, Frederic Horst, managing director of Cargo Facts Consulting, told Reuters.
Germany's Lufthansa, Air France KLM, Finnair and Virgin Atlantic have already cancelled North Asian cargo flights over closed access to airspace.
Major Asian carriers like Korean Air Lines and Japan's ANA Holdings are still using Russian airspace, however, as are Middle Eastern airlines.
Asia-North America cargo routes are expected to be less affected than European routes, analysts say, because many carriers already use Anchorage, Alaska, as a cargo hub and stopover point.