National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines canceled four flights Thursday to Europe for rerouting in the wake of a Malaysia Airlines plane crash in violence-marred eastern Ukraine the same day, a company spokesman said Friday.

Three of the canceled flights were bound from Hanoi and scheduled to travel to Frankfurt, Paris, and London, and the other from Ho Chi Minh City to Paris, Le Truong Giang told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

“Vietnam Airlines canceled these flights immediately after learning of the fate of the doomed Malaysia Airlines flight,” he said.

The flights later departed early Friday, three to five hours behind schedule, after Vietnam Airlines obtained permission for the rerouted services, the spokesman added.

Giang said Vietnam Airlines began rerouting its services to Europe to avoid warzones shortly after the crisis erupted in Ukraine.

“We decided that no Vietnam Airlines flight would fly over Ukraine’s airspace,” he said.

“We managed to obtain permission for the four rerouted flights on Thursday quickly thanks to such early and good preparations.”

The Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 took off from Schiphol airport in Amsterdam shortly after noon Thursday and was scheduled to land in Kuala Lumpur at around 6:10 am Friday local time, according to AFP.

Air traffic control lost contact with the Boeing 777-400 carrying 298 people onboard around 14:15 (12:15 GMT) near the Russian-Ukrainian border, Malaysia Airlines has said in a statement.

The jetliner crashed in strife-torn eastern Ukraine apparently after being shot down.

The crash is a fresh blow to Malaysia Airlines, at a time when the March disappearance of its flight MH370 with 239 people aboard remains a huge mystery.

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