Ireland’s low cost airline Ryanair will study a possibility of opening new bases in Ukraine, along with Kyiv and Lviv, and launching of domestic flights.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary gave this information at a press conference in the Boryspil airport (Kyiv) on Friday devoted to the arrival of the airline to Ukraine.
“We will study the possibility of launching domestic flights. We hope that maybe in the not-too-distant future we would be able to speak about opening of bases not only in Kyiv and Lviv, but also in other cities of Ukraine,” he said.
As reported, the Boryspil and Lviv international airports on Friday, March 23, signed contracts with low-cost air carrier Ryanair on the beginning of flights to Ukraine. The company has already started selling tickets for Ukrainian flights in its booking system.
Present at the event, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Ryanair will start flights in October 2018 and launch flights to 10 destinations from Kyiv, five from Lviv and in the first year of operation will transport 1 million Ukrainians.
In turn, O’Leary corrected him: “We do not expect that there will be a million Ukrainians in the first 12 months of operation. 40% of them will be European travelers who will come to Ukraine. We expect 850,000 passengers for the first year, and for the second year, it is possible to cross the line of 1 million.”
According to him, Ukraine is becoming a very attractive tourist destination. “We expect that we will bring hundreds of thousands of Europeans to Kyiv, Lviv and eventually to Odesa and other cities,” the head of Ryanair said.
He thanked Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan and his team for “very tough negotiations that had been going on in recent months,” adding that the airline is inspired, it is ready to grow rapidly and develop its presence in the country.
