The most popular domestic bus routes in summer 2020 were Kyiv-Odesa, Kharkiv-Kyiv, Lviv-Kyiv, and Kyiv-Dnipro.
Oleksii Lazorenko, the CEO of BlaBlaCar and Busfor Ukraine, announced this to the CFTS portal.
"The domestic market of bus services began to gradually return to normal in May-June 2020. During the period of relation of the quarantine, domestic bus services grew by 50% rather quickly while international bus services fell by 70-80% due to the closure of most borders," said Lazorenko.
According to him, in addition to the obvious difficulties caused by the lockdown and the exit from it, bus carriers have been forced to fight off the increased competition that is emerging on certain routes within Ukraine.
"Bus carriers have adjusted to the zoning of regions based on the epidemiological situation in them and designed their routes to enable them to continue to operating and meet the demand from passengers. For example, the Kyiv-Warsaw route, which has many intermediate stops, was temporarily reduced to Kyiv-Lviv," he said.
Lazorenko also said that the active summer season that begins annually in May was shifted to mid-July due to the lockdown and quarantine. Total sales continued to rise in August and September, almost reaching the 2019 level.
"However, speaking of domestic services, the 50% year-on-year growth has been maintained. Naturally, the so-called seasonal routes (during the holiday and vacation season) have recovered faster than others. The most popular resort destinations include Zatoka, Odesa, and Koblevo. No surprises," Lazorenko said.
According to Lazorenko, there was also a significant increase in passenger traffic between small cities in Ukraine during the quarantine period. “We attribute this trend to the fact that many Ukrainians left big cities to be as close to their families as possible and isolate themselves as much as possible during the quarantine,” he said.
