Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) in connection with information on coronavirus spread offers passengers who have flights to Italy and a number of other countries in March-April 2020 to change the departure date for free, the company’s press service has said.
“To date, there are no any prohibitions on the termination of air traffic with Italy received from international or national competent authorities. In this regard, UIA continues to fly to Italian cities, namely, to Rome, Milan and Venice according to the plan. The airline understands that some passengers who planned their trips to/from Italy in March and April may be concerned about this situation. Thus, UIA offers the opportunity to change the departure date free of charge within the tickets’ validity (if there are free seats in the initial booking class),” reads the statement.
The offer concerns flights from Ukraine to Italy, Germany and Switzerland; from Italy to India, Turkey and Egypt; from Italy, Austria, Spain, France, Germany and Switzerland to Israel and applies to the transit flights through Ukraine to Italy.
All additional services are automatically transferred to the next flight. Tickets are returned in accordance with the rules of the applicable fare.
“Now we are receiving single requests for changing the departure date, there are no mass refusals of passengers to fly to Italian cities, flight loading remains high. Many airlines reduce or even cancel flights to Italy. We understand how important it is to maintain air traffic between countries and economies in this situation. For our part, to make sure the safety of the flights of our passengers and crews, we take all possible measures and follow the appeal issued in the IATA press release, namely do our job consistently and professionally, without panic,” Yevhenia Satska, UIA Communications Director, said.
State-owned PrivatBank intends to involve an adviser in the preparation and sale of the financial institution’s shares in Bukovel, the largest ski resort in Ukraine, Deputy Head of PrivatBank Halyna Pakhachuk has said. “The bank owns two-thirds of the complex, which consists of 64 facilities, one-third is Skorzonera LLC,” she said.
Pakhachuk reported that this list of objects is not an integral property complex; in addition to the hotel, it includes 104 hectares of land and part of the lifts.
According to the deputy head of PrivatBank, when these objects were initially put on the bank’s balance sheet, their value was estimated at UAH 12.6 billion, including the Radisson Blu Bukovel hotel (Zirka Bukovelia) at UAH 1.62 billion, but their real market value differs from these indicators.
Pakhachuk also said that in recent years the bank has been renting its facilities in Bukovel to the Parktur LLC resort operator (Polianytsia, Yaremche, Ivano-Frankivsk region). In 2019, the rent amounted to UAH 110.5 million, including UAH 47.5 million per hotel, and in 2020 it will increase to UAH 117.5 million, including UAH 50.5 million per hotel.
The deputy head of the bank reminded that these facilities are non-core for the financial institution, and according to the standards introduced by the National Bank in the future, they will have to be taken into account at zero cost.
Radisson Blu Bukovel hotel increased its net income by 9.1%, to UAH 221 million, and the net loss decreased by 36.7%, to UAH 39.33 million in 2018. According to the state register, the beneficiaries of this enterprise are former owners of PrivatBank Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov.
The revenue of Parktur LLC increased by 71.9%, to UAH 425.35 million, net profit increased by 6.2 times, to UAH 86.14 million in 2018, the owner is Vitaliy Kovalchuk, registered in Kolomyia (Ivano-Frankivsk region).
Ukrainian airlines in February 2020 performed 89% of all flights from the country’s airports with a 15-minute deviation from the schedule, which corresponds to an increase of 3.1 percentage points compared to the previous airlines’ punctuality study for January 2020 (85.9%).
According to data the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine posted on its website, in general, in January Ukrainian airlines operated 2,929 flights.
At same time, the ministry indicates that the punctuality of foreign airlines in February 2020 increased to 87.3% (from 86.6% in January 2020). The total number of flights is 2,739.
Of the Ukrainian airlines that performed more than 50 flights in January, the most punctual was Windrose airline with an indicator of 92.7% with a total number of flights being 315. It is followed by Ukraine’s largest airline, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), with 91.6% with the total number of flights being 1,770 and Motor Sich with 90.4% and 114 flights. The next are SkyUp (81.9% and 514 flights) and Azur Air Ukraine (79%, 195 flights).
Among foreign airlines, the punctuality rating with 100% was headed by Onur AI (16 flights), Alitalia (15 flights), and Scandinavian Airlines (six flights).
Among the low cost airlines in January, the Irish Ryanair had the best punctuality indicators – 89.7% with 465 flights. Wizz Air Hungary had 84.8% with 552 flights. Wizz Air UK had 81% with 21 flights. Pegasus Airlines is fourth with punctuality of 60% and 90 flights.
Video games are becoming an analogue of social networks, according to CEO of the DMarket in-game item trading platform Vlad Panchenko.
“Now, games are becoming social networks and, for example, the same Facebook and TikTok understand this very well. Their task is to make social networks games, to come up with a form and format where achievements, gameplay, 5G will be perfectly combined. And such a formula is already in development, there is no doubt,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Panchenko also said that the monetization of the gaming industry has something in common with the monetization of multimedia. “If before the main method of earning for a game developer was from the actual sale of the game, now a lot will be packed into subscription services. The market is actively moving towards the fact that the developer will be paid, in fact, for user time spent in the game,” the DMarket CEO said.
He also expressed confidence that the next step in the development of the gaming business will be the introduction of the 5G mobile standard. “Closer to 2023 in a number of countries there will be enough 5G Internet so that users can play a GTA session that they started at home on a good phone on their way to work. Or continue playing Hearthstone, jumping from the phone, for example, to the refrigerator, not even to a TV panel. Such opportunities greatly transform the concept of games,” he said.
As reported, referring to Wargaming, which were citing data from the NewZoo report, the annual income of the video game industry in Ukraine in 2018 amounted to $179.2 million. This is 13.6% more than in 2017: then the Ukrainians spent $157 million on games.
Bill No. 3194 on amendments to the Customs Code of Ukraine in connection with reform of the prosecution system and changes in the judicial system of Ukraine has been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada upon the initiative of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A relevant repost was posted on the parliament’s website.
The bill was submitted to the parliament on Tuesday, March 10, and marked by the president as urgent. The document will be considered by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy before sending it to the parliament for consideration.
The text of the bill and accompanying documents have not been made public on the parliament’s website.
Amid growing new supply the share of vacant space on the office real estate market in Kyi grew by 4.2 percentage points (pp) in 2019 compared with 2018, to 8.5%, CBRE Ukraine consulting company (Kyiv) has said in a press release. “The highest vacancy rate was recorded in areas with a non-center location (19.2%), due to the Sigma and Wave Tower business centers went live in 2019, which remained unfilled by the end of the year. The Pechersky district had the lowest vacancy rate (2.7%), where in 2019 new areas were not presented to the market,” the report says.
According to the experts, the rental rate for the best office premises increased 8% and by the end of the year amounted to $27 per sq. m. a month, which is associated with a limited supply of quality space.
“In the available class A office space, the declared rental rates varied in the range of $26- $45 per sq. m a month in the fourth quarter, and class B rental rates ranged $14- $30 per sq. m. a month. The significant gap between the lower and upper limits of the range is due to the characteristics of the rental space and the location of an office center, which are the main factors determining the high level of rental rates,” CBRE Ukraine said.
