OREANDA-NEWS. April 28, 2014. In the I quarter of the current year the Ukrainian air conveyors shipped 1 million 383.9 thousand persons. I

It is by 25.2% more against similar period of 2013. The Minister of Infrastructure Maxym Burbak announced during a briefing at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Such growth of the showings is caused by cessation of flights by the AeroSvit company at the beginning of the year.

Through the unstable situation within the country the demand to air conveyance is decreasing. If in January-February the growth of volumes of passenger conveyance made up 37.4%, in March – only 3.5%. At this, only domestic services shortened by 17.8%, while the international ones grew by 8.5%.

“Several domestic flights were terminated. First of all, they are the flights to Simpheropol, Luhansk, Donetsk. It is caused, notably, by the political situation and it results into economic hardships for the air conveyors. For instance, UTair has shortened flights, Wizz Air refuses from certain directions, but new conveyors also come. I believe after the situation within the country is stabilized, the flights will resume completely. In turn, the Infrastructure Ministry always meets the needs of the companies who apply for opening new directions,” Maxym Burbak noted.

Overall through January-March passenger conveyances were carried out by 24 national air companies. The share of the four leading passenger conveyors - The International Airlines of Ukraine, Wizz Air Ukraine Airlines, UTair Ukraine and Roza Vitriv (windrose) in general volumes of the I quarter made up almost 90%.

Regular passenger flights between 11 cities of Ukraine during the first three months were performed by the 5 national air companies. They shipped 196 thousand passengers. In the first quarter of 2013, air transport was chosen by 196.7 thousand passengers.

In the international communication the regular flights were carried out by 8 Ukrainian companies to 29 world countries – 878.6 thousand passengers were shipped. Against the last year’s showings the growth made up 42.3%. Moreover, the two-way flights with Ukraine were performed by 42 foreign air companies from 28 countries, including the new ones –EmiratesAirline from the UAE, Ellinair from Greece and TabanAir from Iran. Over the three months these air companies shipped 1 million 089.7 thousand persons, which is by 0.9% down as compared to the showings of January-March of 2013. 

In whole during the I quarter of 2014 the Ukrainian air conveyance covered 109.6 flights – by 8.8% more than through January-March of 2013. The number of flights performed by the planes and helicopters of Ukraine’s air companies grew by 13.1%, by foreign air companies – by 8%.