Ukraine will have another airport with annual passenger traffic exceeding 1 million this year. Passenger traffic through the Lviv airport has increased 1.5-fold this year, and it is on track to reach 1 million by the end of this year.
Passenger traffic through the Lviv airport totaled 822,000 in the first nine months of this year, an increase of almost 100,000 passengers compared with the entire 2016.
Passenger traffic through the airport is expected to increase to 1 million in the remaining three months of this year. The airport handles an average of 90,000 passengers per month. Passenger traffic through the airport increased in the second half of this year following the return of the Wizz Air low-cost airline to the Lviv airport in the spring after a two-year break. Wizz Air launched flights to Wroclaw and Berlin from the Lviv airport in the spring.
Thus, the country will have four airports with passenger traffic of at least 1 million (the Boryspil, Kyiv-Zhulyany, Odesa, and Lviv airports). There were three such airports in Ukraine last year (the Boryspil, Kyiv-Zhulyany, and Odesa). The Odesa airport recently handled its millionth passenger of this year while the Kyiv-Zhulyany airport is approaching 2 million passengers for the year.
The Kharkiv airport is also close reaching the figure of 1 million passengers, having handled 617,000 passengers in the first nine months of this year.
Ukraine had more airports with passenger traffic of at least 1 million several years ago. In addition to the Boryspil, Kyiv-Zhulyany, Odesa airports, the Donetsk and Simferopol airports handled at least 1 million passengers each in 2012. However, the Donetsk airport has been destroyed as a result of the conflict in eastern Ukraine while the Simferopol airport is located in the Russia-annexed Crimea.
