Negotiations with Irish low-cost airline company Ryanair regarding its access to the Ukrainian market are in the final stage, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has said, expressing hope that they will be successfully completed in January-February this year.
“We are already in the final stage of negotiations with Ryanair. I hope this will take place in January-February. There are technical moments that we are completing, but in general everything is fine. We had no concessions compared with positions we had last year,” he said live on the ZIK television channel.
He said that after the disruption of negotiations with Ryanair, the Infrastructure Ministry had a very good contact with Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport.
As reported, on July 10, 2017, Ryanair announced the cancellation of its planned flights to Ukraine after Boryspil airport had violated the agreement achieved at the Infrastructure Ministry with the airport officials and its incumbent CEO Pavlo Riabikin in March 2017.
Riabikin said that Ryanair put forward demands to Boryspil airport regarding flights to Kyiv, which did not comply with Ukrainian legislation.
Two days later, on July 12, 2017, after a special meeting with the leadership of the Infrastructure Ministry, the Justice Ministry, Boryspil airport, the Airports of Ukraine Association, and the Ukraine Investment Promotion Office, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman instructed the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine to evaluate the negotiation process on Ryanair flights to Ukraine and stated the need to resume these negotiations.
