The two major budget airlines in Ukraine, Ireland’s Ryanair and Hungary’s Wizz Air, will begin regular flights from Odesa in the summer of 2019, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan told news website Zn.ua on Jan. 6.
“I think that we will be able to welcome low-cost airlines Ryanair and Wizz Air in Odesa this summer,” said Omelyan.
But three days later neither airline has released any statements confirming plans to expand their Ukraine schedules.
Omelyan pointed out that the airport in Odesa is currently undergoing renovation, adding that construction work must finish before the two companies can launch flights from the city.
The construction of a new 2,800-meter-long, 7.5-meter-wide runway in Odesa began in November 2017. The project is slated for completion in the first half of 2020, with only 800 meters currently built, according to Dumskaya, an Odesa-based news agency.
Mykhailo Kreitman, the acting head of Odesa airport, said in an official response to the Kyiv Post that the airport is currently in talks with both Wizz Air and Ryanair.
“The negotiations are in an active phase,” Kreitman wrote. However, no official agreements have yet been signed.
The airlines themselves have issued no official statements on the matter and were unavailable for comment.
Odesa’s airport is the third largest in Ukraine, with around 1.5 million passengers passing through the hub in 2018.
Wizz Air and Ryanair previously announced plans to expand their presence in Ukraine in 2019. The Irish company will launch flights from Kyiv to Manchester, Athens, Sofia and Paphos in April, while also opening a regular flight from Kyiv to Dublin in May.
Wizz Air has begun selling tickets for spring flights from Kyiv to Riga, Bremen, Krakow and Billund, as well as a new direct flight from Lviv to Copenhagen, which is to be launched on March 3.
