Ukraine from January 1, 2019 will stop issuing visas on arrival for foreign citizens at international airports, said State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andriy Zayats.
“From January 1, the issuance of visas at international airports will cease and the functionality of the electronic visa will expand,” Zayats told the Kyiv-based ezine LB.ua.
According to him, the Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the issuance of visas at the airport is neither modern nor effective, since some foreigners do not speak English, and some foreigners do not have a banking card, with which they can pay the consular fee.
In 11 months of 2018, about 35,000 visas have been issued at the airports of Ukraine.
Zayats said that the functionality of the electronic visa will now be expanded by increasing the number of states whose citizens will be able to issue it, adding that the list of purposes to be issued an e-visa is expanding.
“Now the purpose is only a tourist or business trip. From January 1, treatment and private trips to visit relatives are added to this. Visas for journalists are added. So, we block almost all non-immigration types of travel with electronic visas,” the diplomat said.
He said that the e-visa fee will be set at $85 from January 1, while the consular fee for entry into Ukraine will be set at $65.
The Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine plans to create 50 airports in Ukraine, five of which will be international aviation hubs, and 20 more will service international flights.
“In the aviation industry, we see the creation of 50 airports throughout Ukraine. We are not talking about 50 Boryspil airports. We talk at least about five international hubs, at least 20 airports that will provide international communication, as well as about 20 that will be service flights to the regions,” Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan said at the presentation of the Ukrainian transport strategy until 2030 on Thursday evening.
According to him, the average time, which should take to reach an airport from anywhere in the country, should be reduced to one hour.
As for the development of the aviation industry, it is planned to open 350 destinations for flights from all airports in Ukraine.
Earlier, Omelyan announced the creation of two new airlines in Ukraine.
Ireland’s low cost airline Ryanair is holding talks with five Ukrainian airports on launching flights and hopes to start flying to new destination to Ukraine in 2019, Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has said in an interview with the Ukrainian Tourism Newspaper. “Now we are negotiating with five more Ukrainian cities – maybe next summer we will open our flights there. I think we will develop in Ukraine very aggressively and rapidly increase the pace of our presence in the market,” he said.
At the same time, O’Leary expressed regret that the airline cannot yet launch all the destinations from Ukraine that it would like to launch, in connection with the existing restrictions in intergovernmental agreements.
He also said that Kyiv remains the key destination for the airline. When asked if negotiations with the airports of such cities as Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kherson and Vinnytsia are being conducted, O’Leary said that the negotiations are being held “almost with all the mentioned cities.”
“I will be very glad if next summer we will be able to offer our passengers flights to such a beautiful city as Odesa, but it is too early to talk about the specifics. Our and Ukrainian negotiators still need to work hard for the successful implementation of this project,” the Ryanair CEO said.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure considers it necessary to invest in the construction and repair of runways at regional airports, Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan has said on the air of Channel Five. “A lot of airlines are ready to enter Ukrainian regional airports, but there are no conditions for that. There are no runways, there are no terminals that would accelerate servicing, while this is one of the key issues for low cost air carriers. Therefore we must invest in the runways as a state to get a highly competitive market and business for the state as well,” he said.
According to Omelyan, the development of airports will ensure a quick return on investment. Earlier, the minister said that the reconstruction of the airport in Odesa is to be completed in 2019. It is also planned to additionally allocate UAH 1.17 billion for the construction of a runway at Odesa airport. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, the construction of a new runway will allow Odesa airport to accept heavier aircraft, including Boeing-767, which, in turn, can double passenger traffic.
Boryspil (Kyiv) and Lviv international airports have signed agreements on the start of flights to Ukraine with Ireland’s low cost airline Ryanair. An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary signed the agreements with Director General of the Boryspil airport Pavlo Riabikin and Director General of Lviv airport Tetiana Romanovska on Friday at the Boryspil airport in the presence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
The airline has started selling tickets for Ukrainian flights in its booking system.
Poroshenko said that Ryanair will start flying in October 2018 and will launch flights to 10 destinations from Kyiv and five from Lviv.
The Ukrainian president said that the arrival of the airline to Ukraine is the seal of quality of investment climate. He said that the tickets for Ukrainians will be cheaper than EUR 40 and the airline seeks to carry 1 million Ukrainians in the first year of its operation.
