Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

At offices in the emirate’s airport free zone, where Russian and eastern European cargo aircraft operators once managed bustling transportation networks that crisscrossed the globe, business is a shadow of its former self. The slump has been brought on by the ban on the Antonov An-12, the workhorse of the companies’ transport operations. The ageing, four-engine turboprop aircraft was banned from UAE airspace by federal aviation authorities on March 1 following a series of accidents, one of which killed seven people, and a government inspection of operations in Ukraine. Sharjah had become the Ukrainian-made plane’s regional logistics and maintenance hub, but the ban has effectively brought that two-decade era to an end. Read the story here.