Scheduled flights inside Ukraine may be resumed by summer’s end

"I think that scheduled [flights inside Ukraine] are quite likely to be resumed in September or even earlier, by the end of the summer," Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Vladyslav Kryklii said in an interview with Channel 24, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

He specified that the Ministry of Infrastructure was interested in the possibility for Ukrainian air carriers to resume their flights as soon as possible after the crisis.

"We discuss this issue and insist that our airspace should be supported, in particular, through affordable loans, and that the carriers could also join and receive this resource. Second, we already make certain steps during this quarantine such as partial compensation for charter flights. For example, when they [carriers] returned Ukrainian citizens back home when passenger transportation had already been stopped, they had to fly empty one way constantly, taking people away. We made a decision and we currently wait for detailed calculations from the carriers to compensate for that. It would also help them in a certain way to hold on until the restoration of full-fledged air transportation,” Kryklii said.

According to him, all Ukrainian air carriers – UIA, Windrose Airlines, SkyUp, Azur – requested assistance from the Infrastructure Ministry.

At the same time, the minister said that it would take two years for the aviation industry to return to the pre-crisis level.

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