Budget airlines plan to return to Ukraine immediately after flights resume – FT

European budget airlines are preparing to return to Ukraine as soon as its airports are able to reopen for passenger flights.

Source: Financial Times

Details: Wizz Air has said it plans to base 15 aircraft in Ukraine within two years of a peace agreement being reached, and that this number will rise to 50 within seven years, while Ryanair has said it could resume flights within two weeks of any deal being concluded.

"We have planned for this, as soon as the airspace opens we are going to be very quick to re-establish ourselves. Re-opening would be a significant opportunity for us," Wizz Air CEO József Váradi told the Financial Times.

In addition to a wave of Ukrainians returning home and large-scale reconstruction works, Váradi also forecasts a wave of "catastrophe tourism" to Ukraine.

In 2019, the peak year for air travel before the pandemic, almost 15 million passengers flew to Ukraine. According to the aviation consultancy firm Cirium, around 10.8 million people travelled by air in 2021, the year before Russia's invasion.

Ryanair's leadership has visited key Ukrainian airports with a plan to increase passenger numbers to 4 million. Before Ukraine closed its airports, the airline carried around 1.5 million passengers a year to Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa.

The carrier, which has aircraft based in 95 airports across Europe, can open routes from any of its bases without disrupting the rest of its network, allowing it to move faster than competitors with fewer bases.

EasyJet, which has not previously flown to Ukraine, is also considering launching routes there. CEO Kenton Jarvis said the country is set to become "Europe's largest construction project", and that people "will want to come home when home is safe".

Background: This summer, the number of commercial flights in the European Union increased compared with last year's figures, but still remains below pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

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