Ireland’s Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget airline, is considering resuming a small number of flights to Ukraine by the end of this year, provided Ukraine successfully negotiates a partial opening of airspace, the airline’s chief executive Michael O’Leary said.
“We’re considering two plans: one when the war is over and everything opens up in one or two days. And the second, the most likely one, under which we may schedule a small number of flights as early as the end of this year,” O’Leary told Interfax-Ukraine.
He cited the experience of Israel, where aviation continues to operate. “Planes land daily in Tel Aviv, which is only 10 minutes away from the West Bank, from where missiles are launched. It was definite that it was safe to fly and they (the local government – IF-U) can protect the plane. So I see no reason why we can’t return flights (to Ukraine – IF-U),” O’Leary said.
According to his information, the Ministry of Air Transport is currently working on resuming some flights to Ukraine later this year.
“I think we should be optimistic. Now the ministry (Ministry of Recovery – IF-U) is working on resuming some flights to Kiev and Lviv at the end of this year. And if they can prove that it is safe, we will perform these flights,” said the head of Ryanair.
At the same time, he emphasized that if Ukraine fails to convince EASA – European Aviation Safety Agency and insurance companies that it is safe to perform a limited number of flights to Kiev and Lviv, the company will not be able to resume flights.
As reported, Ryanair this week announced a commitment to resume flights to/from Ukraine at low fares within 8 weeks of the opening of Ukrainian airspace. The company plans to deploy up to 30 new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in Kiev, Lviv and Odessa at a cost of over $3 billion. It was indicated that the airline is ready to operate up to 600 flights per week. In addition, Ryanair plans to open daily flights between Kiev, Lviv and Odessa as soon as the airports are ready for it.
It was noted that the airline plans to reach more than 5 million passenger seats per year in the first 12 months after the launch and intends to increase this number to 10 million passengers within five years.
Ukrainian grandmaster Vasyl Ivanchuk has received a “wild card” from the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to participate in the FIDE World Cup, which starts July 29 in Baku, but has not been allowed to leave the country, the FIDE tweeted on Saturday.
“Vasily Ivanchuk lives in Lviv, Ukraine. According to current legislation, he needs permission from the Ministry of Youth and Sports to leave the country for sporting purposes, as he is under 60 years old (he is now 54). Such authorization was not granted. An official request from the organizers of the World Championship, the Azerbaijan Chess Federation, was also rejected,” the Federation said.
In this regard, some of the world’s leading grandmasters signed an open letter to the Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Vadim Guttsayt. “We ask the chess community to support this proposal by sharing the letter and hope that more grandmasters will express their support for Grandmaster Ivanchuk,” FIDE said in a statement.
Hotel operator Reikartz is rebranding its hotel chain in Ukraine, with the new name Optima Hotels & Resorts, the operator’s press service said.
“The Ukrainian owners of Reikartz Hotel Group have reached an agreement on the separation of trademarks and decided to create a new brand for the hotel chain in Ukraine. The new name of our chain is Optima Hotels & Resorts. The chain will include Optima and Optima Collection hotels, Vita Park and Raziotel”, – said the operating director of Optima Hotels & Resorts Nadezhda Romanchuk.
She also said that the work on rebranding of hotels and on a new website optimahotels.com.ua, which will be launched this summer.
The chain unites more than 80 hotels in Ukraine, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Uzbekistan.
The Reikartz chain operated under the brands Raziotel (a chain of three-star economy hotels), Vita, Optima (three-star wellness resorts and hotels), as well as Reikartz Collection and Reikartz Hotels & Resorts (three-star-plus and four-star business and resort hotels).
In July 2022, the Reikartz River Hotel in Nikolaev suffered significant damage due to Russian shelling.
Reikartz Hotel Management LLC was established in 2008. According to Opendatabot data, the company’s participants are Volodymyr Kashutin (Lviv, 99.9%) and Andriy Dema (Kyiv, 0.1%). Kashutin is listed as the ultimate beneficiary. At the same time, until 2019, the beneficiaries were listed as citizens of the Russian Federation Yuri Vasin, Leonid Lavrentiev and Timur Rodionov.
According to the financial results for 2022, the company’s net profit amounted to UAH 10.6 million against a loss in 2021.
The Ukrainian State Postal Communications Enterprise (USPS) Ukrposhta (Kiev) is holding a tender for services of compulsory insurance of civil liability of owners of motor vehicles (OSAGO).
As reported in the electronic public procurement system “Prozorro”, the expected cost is -1.085 million UAH.
Documents are accepted until July 25.
As reported, the winner of a similar tender was IC “Guardian”.
Agro-industrial holding Astarta, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, in April-June 2023 increased revenue from sales of key products by 68.3% compared to the same period last year – up to UAH 4.7 billion, according to the data published by it on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
According to them, sugar sales increased by 9.2% year-on-year in the second quarter of this year to 68.9 thousand tons, while its average selling price increased by 40.6% to UAH 28.16 thousand per ton.
Milk sales in the second quarter of 2023 increased by 20.9% to 28.4 thousand tons, soybean oil – by 50.7% to 12.3 thousand tons, soybean meal – by 92% to 58.9 thousand tons.
Corn sales jumped 80.5% to 58.8 thousand tons, wheat sales jumped 95.6% to 5.9 thousand tons, and sunflower seed sales jumped 2.9 times to 28.6 thousand tons.
Agroholding specified that such an increase in sales in physical terms allowed to compensate for lower prices for most types of products. In particular, soybean oil fell in price by 28.8% to UAH 33.06 thousand/ton, wheat – by 26.8% to UAH 4.20 thousand/ton, sunflower seeds – by 21.5% to UAH 13.26 thousand/ton, corn – by 4.6% to UAH 6.85 thousand/ton.
Only soybean meal – by 33.6%, up to UAH 19.98 thousand/ton and milk – by 6.0%, up to UAH 13.09 thousand/ton.
Thus, sales of sugar in the second quarter increased by 53.6% to UAH 1 billion 938.8 million, wheat – by 24.8% to UAH 43.1 million, corn – by 72.2% to UAH 402.8 million, and sunflower seeds – by 72.2% to UAH 1 billion 938.8 million, sunflower seeds – by almost 2.3 times, to UAH 379.4 mln, soybean oil – by 11.8%, to UAH 405.1 mln, soybean meal – by almost 2.6 times, to UAH 1 billion 176.8 mln and milk – by 28.1%, to UAH 371.6 mln.
Overall, in the first half of the year, Astarta’s revenue from the sale of key products increased by 64.8% to UAH 10.72 billion compared to the same period last year, according to data published by the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
The main contribution was made by sales of sugar – UAH 3.27 billion, up 75.5%, corn – UAH 2.66 billion (+53.2%) and soybean meal – UAH 1.96 billion (+84.5%).
“Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in eight regions of Ukraine. It includes six sugar factories, agro-farms with a land bank of 220 thousand hectares and dairy farms with 22 thousand cattle, an oil extraction plant in Globino (Poltava region), seven elevators and a biogas complex. In this marketing year, the company sowed 201 thousand hectares, which is 40% more than last year.
Agropromholding earned EUR16.13 mln of net profit in the first quarter of 2023, which is 6.2 times more than in the first quarter of 2022. Its revenue grew by 37.1% to EUR163.55m, while EBITDA increased by 63.5% to EUR37.91m.
In hryvnia terms, Astarta increased its net profit 7.5 times to UAH 632.59m in the first quarter of this year, while revenue grew 66.6% to UAH 6bn 415.09m.
Germany has handed over a new military aid package to Ukraine, which includes 10 Leopard 1A5 tanks and 20 MG3 machine guns for tanks and armored vehicles.
According to the report published on the website of the German government, the new aid package also includes 1,305 155 mm caliber shells, 2,064 155 mm caliber smoke shells, 1 bridge system and 12 trailers, 4 vehicles for border protection, 10 ground radar stations, 16 Zetros trucks, as well as 100,000 first aid kits.
In addition to the tanks, Germany transferred 20 MG3 machine guns for Leopard 2 tanks, Marder BMPs and Dachs engineer tanks to Ukraine.
