This article is published in Air Transport World part of Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN), and is complimentary through Mar 08, 2025. For information on becoming an AWIN Member to access more content like this, click here.
At Kyiv Boryspil Airport, as at other large airports in Ukraine, training efforts for airport ground handling, aviation security, passport control and other measures are hampered by a lack of practical support.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, has had a devastating effect on the Ukrainian people and economy. It has also all but destroyed Ukraine’s aviation industry, with the country’s airspace closed to commercial operations and airline and airport activities effectively shut down.
In early December 2024, ATW met in Vienna with Petro Lypovenko, the president of the non-governmental Association Airports of Ukraine of Civil Aviation (AAUCA), which was established in 1992. He outlined the status of Ukraine’s commercial aviation operations at that time and the plans being made to recover.
It will be a long and difficult task.
Lypovenko said that most of the 21 airports within the AAUCA have been damaged, some seeing serious infrastructure impacts. Before the war and the pandemic, Ukraine’s aviation sector was in growth mode, with 2019 seeing a record 29.5 million passengers handled across the country’s airports. War-related aviation losses have been estimated at more than €2 billion ($2.10 billion). An estimated 50,000 skilled aviation workers are thought to have been lost to the industry or will need significant retraining to bring them back up to speed.
“Since the beginning of the war, airport infrastructure has been subjected to constant shelling—bombs, shells, rockets—which has led to its destruction. Almost all of Ukraine’s airport facilities have suffered varying degrees of damage, including Antonov airfield in Gostomel and international airports in the cities of Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia,” Lypovenko said.
Two Ukraine airports—Kyiv Boryspil and Lviv—are state-owned. The rest are either municipal airports owned by city and regional councils, or they are operated via a public-private partnership (P3), Lypovenko explained. P3 airports include Kharkiv, Odesa and Kyiv Sikorsky. The five largest airports are Kyiv Boryspil, Kyiv Zhuliany, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv, which are also the main connectors between Ukraine and Europe.
Lypovenko said all “are waiting for and hoping for a complete Ukrainian victory in the war and a gradual resumption of civilian air traffic and passenger flows.” Following the instructions of the Central Executive Authorities (CEA), which coordinates the country’s aviation industry, Ukraine’s airport managers have been working on plans to restore air travel, but they will not present recovery plans at the same time.
“First of all, the safety of flights and passengers is vital. We need to be sure that all the documents related to Russia are signed and that the airspace over Ukraine can be safely opened,” he said. “After these conditions are met, several airports will be ready to start operating in a few months. But safety is above all. First and foremost, we need help from IATA, ACI and ICAO to implement European regulations and standards in Ukraine. To do this, we need practical support and internships for our employees at European airports, so they can gain practical experience that they can implement at their airports because they have not been operating for some three years.”
Lypovenko said that as of the end of November 2024, Ukraerorukh—known also as UkSATSE, or the Ukrainian State Air Traffic Service Enterprise—was the only air traffic control operator to have received assistance from a fund organized by Eurocontrol. If the war were to end in two weeks, that ATC service would be ready to operate, he said.
“Dispatchers are being trained in European centers to maintain their work skills at the required level. This can be learned in Ukraine as well. In Kyiv Boryspil and Lviv, there is training for employees on airport ground handling, aviation security, passport control and similar. But the problem is that they don’t have enough practical support. Our goal is still to be in compliance with European norms and standards in terms of production and safety, via the European Union, which would allow us to fully integrate into the European airspace and position Ukrainian airports as key players in the social-economic revival of the regions,” he said.
In terms of airlines, Lypovenko said Ukrainian carriers are keen to resume operations as soon as the situation is safe. There are also some European carriers that have expressed interest in returning to Ukraine as soon as possible, including airBaltic, Ryanair and Wizz Air. But there are practical considerations.
Wizz Air commercial officer Silvia Mosquera told ATW in early December 2024 that the Budapest-headquartered ultra-LCC is planning its comeback strategy for Ukraine once the situation allows. “Ukraine was a very important market for us; actually, we were the last carrier that suspended operations in Ukraine,” Mosquera said. “As soon as we can, we’ll resume operations, and we will be more than happy to do it. We are working on a plan to recover operations, and we are in conversation with airports in Ukraine.”
Wizz Air has routes to and from Ukraine in mind, but won’t yet make its plans public. Three Wizz Air Airbus A320s remain trapped in Ukraine, and they would need maintenance work before going back into operation.
Irish ULCC Ryanair says that once there is clarity on safety, flights to Ukraine could resume within about eight weeks.
Ryanair CCO Jason McGuinness told ATW that the comeback plan includes a first step involving 75 route destinations—a plan that was presented to Ukraine’s government in the summer of 2023. The plan would make 5 million seats available in the first 12 months. In the following two-to-five years, 30 aircraft would be based in Ukraine, operating 150 routes and offering around 10 million seats. “McGuiness said these would include several domestic flights, such as from Kiev to Lviv.”
“The plan is there, and we are working very closely with the government,” McGuinness said.
For Ukraine and the AAUCA, recovery cannot come soon enough, but there are practical considerations.
“We are waiting for support from European airports and for practical training for our employees, ground handling as well as assistance with special equipment. We also need help in the form of consultations and experts to organize administrative and logistical changes, including in the operational part of the airports,” Lypovenko said.
Related Content
