The Kherson airport will be completely shut down from 20 September until the end of this year because of the reconstruction of a runway.
Tender documents state that a contractor (the Avtomagistral-Yug company) will reconstruct the runway in two stages to enable it to receive heavy long-haul Boeing 767-300 aircraft at least twice a day, the CFTS portal reports, citing the avianews website. The reconstruction work will cost UAH 440 million.
The first stage of the reconstruction work involves leveling the existing asphalt pavement with a length of 2,000 meters and a width of 42 meters. New asphalt with a thickness of 7 centimeters will be laid.
The second stage is divided into two sub-stages. During the first sub-stage, the asphalt section of the runway should be strengthened and expanded from 42 meters to 45 meters. On a section of the runway with a length of 500 meters and a width of 45 meters, concrete slabs will be replaced with two layers of asphalt concrete with a total thickness of 18 centimeters. This work is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The second sub-stage of the second stage involves extension of the runway by 100 meters to 2,600 meters, expansion of the side safety strips on the runway, which should increase its width to 60 meters. This work is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022.
The Kherson airport currently handles charter flights to resorts and the regular flights of Ukraine International Airline to Kyiv, Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines to Istanbul, and Bees Airline to Tbilisi.
As reported earlier, the new runway at the Odesa airport began receiving passenger flights on 16 July. It is the first new runway to be built in Ukraine in the past 10 years.
