Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) from October 25, 2018 will launch direct flights from Kyiv to La Romana (the Dominican Republic) and from December 27 – to Goa (India). According to the press service of the airline, flights to the Dominican Republic will be serviced on Mondays and Thursdays with an interval of ten days. UIA also optimizes the winter season schedule for 2018/2019.
In particular, since December 20, the airline will increase the frequency of flights between Kyiv and Bangkok to six a week, Kyiv and Istanbul – up to three daily flights. At the same time, the intensity of flights between Kyiv and Almaty will be reduced from seven to four, and between Kyiv and Astana – up to three flights a week.
“In the winter, the frequency will be slightly reduced on such European destinations from Kyiv as Larnaca, Venice, Athens, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Frankfurt, Brussels, Riga, Vilnius, Stockholm, Helsinki, London, Copenhagen, Ankara, Milan (Bergamo), Prague and Vienna, the frequency of long-haul flights to Beijing and Toronto will be reduced by one and two flights a week, respectively,” the press service of the airline said.
Also, a slight reduction in the number of flights to Tel Aviv, Baku, Yerevan, Tbilisi, Amman and Tehran is planned.
From the regions of Ukraine, there will be less direct international flights from Ivano-Frankivsk to Valencia and Alicante, and also from Lviv to Madrid.
One flight a week less will be serviced from Kyiv to Kharkiv and Lviv.
UIA was founded in 1992. According to the National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market and the state register, 100% directly or indirectly is controlled by Cypriot-based Ontobet Promotions Limited which beneficiaries are not disclosed.
Romania’s Tarom airline will launch direct Odesa-Bucharest flights from September 1, 2018, the Odesa international airport has written on its Facebook page. “The flights will be operated three times a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Departure from the Odessa International Airport is at 4:15 and from the Henri Coanda International Airport (Bucharest) is at 1:00 local time. It is planned to use modern turboprop aircraft ATR 42/72,” the airport said.
The airport also said that in Bucharest, passengers are able to connect to air carrier flights on more than 30 routes to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as 10 destinations within Romania.
At the moment, direct flights to Romania from Ukraine are carried out by Windrose on the Kyiv-Bucharest route.
Atlasjet Ukraine (the AtlasGlobal brand) will begin flights from Odesa International Airport on the route Istanbul-Odesa-Istanbul from November 1, the airport press service has reported.
Such a decision is dictated by operational reasons, the company told Interfax-Ukraine.
“The company continues to work, but in the summer season it will carry out only the charter program,” the source added.
At the first stage, flights will be operated four times a week on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. The journey takes one hour and 40 minutes.
All flights will be operated by Airbus 320 aircraft with eight business class seats and 156 economy class seats.
As reported, on April 24 Atlasjet Ukraine suspended the scheduled flights to Istanbul from Ukrainian cities.
Atlasjet Ukraine was registered in Ukraine on September 13, 2013, and on April 2, 2014 it received a license from the State Aviation Service of Ukraine to carry out regular passenger flights.
The company carried out regular flights, in particular, from Lviv, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia to Istanbul from September 2015. It uses the AtlasGlobal trademark for provision of services in Ukraine.
Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air will soon start flights from Kyiv to Brussels-Charleroi and Paris-Beauvais Airports.
“Our newest added destinations of Wizz from Kyiv include: Dortmund, Memmingen (Munich West,) Brussels-Charleroi, Paris-Beauvais and Copenhagen,” says a message sent to the airline’s customers on Thursday.
At the same time, flights from Kyiv to Brussels-Charleroi and Paris-Beauvais are not currently shown in the booking system, while flights to Dortmund and Memmingen (Munich West) have been serviced by the company for several years, and those to Copenhagen since August 2017.
As reported, Wizz Air in January-May 2018 transported 425,000 passengers to/from Ukraine, which is almost twice as many as in the same period of 2017. “From Kyiv, we offer 1.3 million passenger seats this year, which is 79% up. And in total from Ukraine this year, we offer 1.67 million passenger seats,” Head of Corporate Communications at Wizz Air Sorina Ratz said late in June.
Turkey’s resorts remain most popular in the number of charter flights from Ukraine in the 2018 tourist season, and around 80 charter flights to this country is serviced from Ukrainian airports every week.
Analysts from TripSee online service told Interfax-Ukraine that the share of charter flights to Turkey in the 2018 tourist season is 72-75% of all charter programs of tour operators working in Ukraine.
About 15-20% of the charter programs of Ukrainian tour operators are flights to Egypt, then Greece, Bulgaria and Tunisia.
Analysts of TripSee also said that in 2018, new charter destinations for the resorts of Italy – to Calabria and Ancona, as well as to the Peloponnese Peninsula in Greece – were launched from Ukraine.
“Only one operator has several flights a day to Turkey, so the client can choose the most convenient time for departure. In Europe, this year there is also a more extensive flight program. The cost of tours has increased, but insignificantly. The market has hot tours and tours for later dates,” the TripSee analysts said.
Commenting on the pace of prices for package tours in the summer season of 2018, they said that prices for tours to Turkey start from UAH 7,000 all inclusive, Greece – from UAH 10 thousand per person with breakfasts, to Spain – from UAH 12 thousand with breakfasts and dinners.
At the same time, the analysts from TripSee said that, as before, most customers are looking for hot tours, especially to Turkey, but in the season of 2018 there is a noticeable upward pace in earlier purchases.
SkyUp airline is studying the possibility of involving Ukrainian-made aircraft for domestic flights, the co-founder of the airline Yuriy Alba said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“We held the first round of negotiations under the auspices of Minister of Infrastructure [Volodymyr] Omelyan, and we met with the Antonov’s chief designer regarding the possibility of operating our domestic aircraft on domestic flights. We are now in active correspondence with the design office, collecting data to analyze the technical and economic characteristics of domestic planes. We also want to analyze the material base and training centers that train pilots for the operation of Antonov [aircraft]. We will soon be able to understand how fruitful cooperation with the domestic producer will be,” Alba said.
As he said, now the airline owns two Boeing planes, which the company has received in leasing. In the future SkyUp plans to expand the fleet by 10 aircraft.
“As for the deal with Boeing, we will decide on the financing issue together with the corporation. We are attracting funding from our tourism partners for the start. When we provide the first guaranteed payment, a joint trip will take place with representatives of the corporation to leading U.S. banks that will provide us with grant for obtaining loans from the World Bank,” Alba said.
According to him, the first part of the advance payment has already been made, further payments will be made annually according to the schedule.
“The prepayment was $4 million. It included contracts for the supply of five aircraft in 2023 and five aircraft in 2024. Also this advance payment included the signing of a contract for the leasing of current aircraft that had transferred from Malaysian Airlines and that are now servicing private flights for a tour operator,” the SkyUp co-founder said.
He added that the foreign partners of the company are engaged in financing the newly created airline.
