The COVID-19 pandemic has severely hit air travel around the world and Ukraine is no exception: the number of flights in local airports dropped by 56.6% compared to last year, reaching only 15,000 in September, Ukrainian state enterprise on air traffic UkSATSE reported on Oct. 7.
The decrease is sharper than was expected. In April, experts from Eurocontrol, the European organization for the safety of air navigation, forecast a 40% decline.
“Eurocontrol’s forecast for a gradual resumption of air traffic in September did not come true,” reads the Oct. 7 statement on the UkSATSE website. “Compared to August this year, the number of flights in September decreased by almost 2,000 flights.”
Overall, there were 2,710 domestic flights, about 7,000 international flights, and nearly 5,200 transit flights.
One of the reasons for the September drop was the ban for foreigners to enter Ukraine, which lasted from Aug. 29 to Sept. 28, affecting the number of international (-55%) and transit flights (-67%) in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government closed its borders to foreigners due to the rising number of coronavirus infections in the country.
While many countries like Egypt and Turkey gradually — but cautiously — began to open their air borders for Ukraine, most of the European Union countries remain closed for Ukrainian citizens.
Ukraine completely stopped its air connection with the EU in March, when the novel coronavirus began to spread rapidly in Italy and Spain. However, now it’s the EU that has its borders closed for Ukrainians due to the high number of active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 members of the population in Ukraine.
According to Georgiy Zubko, commercial director of Kyiv Boryspil International Airport, if the situation remains the same for commercial, losses of Ukrainian airlines may reach $1.3 billion by the end of the year and 80,000 people may lose their jobs.
Back in August, the International Air Transport Association forecasted that Ukraine’s air traffic volumes will decrease by 55% by the end of 2020 compared to 2019. Now, UkSATSE expects the decline of the Ukrainian aviation industry to “be significantly slower than expected at the beginning of the quarantine.”
