Britain said on Thursday it was introducing new sanctions against the Russian airline sector to prevent state-owned Aeroflot, Ural Airlines and Rossiya Airlines from selling their unused landing slots at British airports.

"We’ve already closed our airspace to Russian airlines. Today we’re making sure they can’t cash in their lucrative landing slots at our airports," British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

The British government said it estimated the landing slots were worth 50 million pounds ($61.9 million). ($1 = 0.8079 pounds)

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and Muvija M; editing by Michael Holden)