The Wizz Air Ukraine airline company will discontinue its Donetsk-London flights on November 11 because of lack of demand, the Wizz Air group’s Executive Vice President John Stephenson has told avianews.com.
"The requirements for visas to Great Britain are a key barrier to outbound traffic, and the demand for flights to Donetsk from London is not sufficient to compensate for this," Stephenson said.
According to Stephenson, flights on the Donetsk-London route are unlikely to be resumed in summer 2014. As a replacement, Wizz Air will launch flights from Donetsk to Larnaca on March 30, 2014.
Wizz Air Ukraine began operating flights from Donetsk to London twice a week on October 2 after opening a base in Donetsk. Wizz Air Hungary has been operating flights from London to Kiev since 2008. Wizz Air Ukraine operated flights from Lviv to London for a few months in 2009, but the route was later closed.
The airline companies LOT (Warsaw-Donetsk) and the Czech Airlines (Prague-Donetsk) have discontinued flights to Donetsk in 2013. The Czech Airlines said it discontinued flights to Donetsk because of "the current policy regarding issuance of entry visas, which affected demand."
