But all these changes did not make several big elephants in the room go away.
Many were puzzled when fancy new Terminal D opened in May 2012, with no food or drink in sight, nor duty free shops – a constant in any international airport. For nearly a year passengers who were flying from Terminal D had nowhere to buy food, coffee or even water, or to shop for that matter. Only recently did the administration of Boryspil proudly open a cafe in departures hall of Terminal D, offering sandwiches for around Hr 80 ($10) and other goods.
Then there was a bizarre incident, when in September 2012 all cafes and shops in duty free areas of terminals B and D were shut down for weeks as a result of a confusion between the State Property Fund and the prosecutor’s office (according to one account of the events).
It’s very clear for anyone that the airport is extremely poorly run. Partly it’s the actual management, but not all is. The airport is state owned and most of the people who have lived in Ukraine for some time have some idea of what that entails. Endless bureaucracy with numerous overlapping controlling bodies and incompetence does not even start to describe the problem.
There is no way a modern airport can operate smoothly and efficiently under those conditions and rules. But it’s not just about the airport. The entire industry desperately needs new rules to attract much needed new players. New airlines have to come to Ukraine, especially budget ones. The main obstacle is that the system of obtaining permissions for routes is a very awkward, long and corrupt.
Ukraine has long been resisting signing the Open Skies agreement with the European Union, which would enable any EU airline to operate in Ukraine without route permissions, and vice versa. The problem is, despite having been enjoying the monopoly on Ukrainian sky for decades, the few remaining Ukrainian airlines still have not managed to become efficient. So it is clear to anyone that they would be destroyed if their western counterparts would get to compete with them on equal terms.
But maybe that would be for the better, if you believe that the market should set the rules. It would certainly benefit us, the passengers.
