State-owned enterprise (SOE) Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv), the largest airport of the country, plans to service 12.55 million passengers in 2018, which is 19% more than in 2017, when 10.555 million people were serviced. This is outlined in a financial plan of the airport approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on April 11 and a copy of which has been sent to Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the document, this year the airport seeks to boost passenger flow on international routes by 16.8%, to 11.31 million and on domestic routes – by 42.7%, to 1.24 million people.
“The decrease in the airport fees in the Boryspil airport since June 2017 and the introduction of a program to stimulate growth in volumes by the number of carriers allow us to maintain high growth rates of passenger traffic,” the airport said in an explanatory note to its financial plan.
In 2018, the Boryspil airport plans to serve 101,466 flights, which is 16% more than in 2017. The number of international flights is planned at 89,363 (17.6% more), domestic – 12,103 (5.4% more).
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.
