The Yanair airline company expects to launch regular flights from the Zhitomir airport before the end of this year, the airline's General Director Yaroslav Ahafonov said.
"Pre-project work, preparation for certification, and legal registration are currently taking place. I hope that at least domestic flights will be performed from there before the end of the year. This is an entire program that is currently being explored. There are plans to create a maintenance base and a flight school," he said at a news conference on Tuesday.
According to him, the amount of investment in the airport is around USD 15 million. According to Volodymyr Sobolev, Yanair’s deputy general director and director of the /flight complex, the project involves increasing the length of the airport’s runway from 1,650 to 2,400 meters to enable it to receive planes of the type Boeing 737 and Airbus 320.
As for passenger traffic, the airline expects to lure some travelers from Kiev to Zhitomir. "If one travels from the right bank of River Dnieper, the distances to Boryspil to Zhitomir will be approximately the same.
"The plans of the airline go as far as performance of passenger check-ins in Kiev: passengers will get on a bus and travel directly to board a plane. For tourists, free parking at the airport. We will do everything to make the Zhitomir airport competitively attractive through such preferences. We plan to launch next year, ahead of the summer season," said Sobolev.
Yanair Ltd. was registered in Zhitomir in June 2012. It began operating flights in August 2013. The carrier currently has a fleet of two Saab-340 and two Airbus 320 planes. The company expects to take delivery of a Boeing 737-300 plane before the end of the month.
