Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian believes that the Irish low-cost airline, Ryanair, will definitely enter the Ukrainian market next year, if not this year. Omelian expressed this belief in comments to the UNIAN news agency.
"Negotiations with the Ryanair airline are continuing, but I believe that Ryanair had every reason and opportunities to begin flights from the Boryspil and Lviv airports in September this year. But we ran into artificial obstacles... However, I should disappoint everyone – Ryanair Will fly from Ukraine definitely year," Omelian said.
As the CFTS portal reported, the minister has also expressed dissatisfaction with the way in which the Boryspil airport is conducting negotiations on joint operations with the Irish airline. According to him, the negotiations are "at an unsatisfactory stage."
Ryanair announced on July 10 that it had cancelled its planned entry into Ukraine following the Boryspil airport’s failure to honor a growth agreement that was reached with the airport’s officials and its current Director General Riabikin at the Ministry of Infrastructure in March this year. Riabikin said at the time that the demands that Ryanair made to Boryspil regarding flights to Kyiv did not comply with Ukrainian legislation.
Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman held a special meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Justice, the Boryspil airport, the Airports of Ukrainian association, and the Investment Promotion Office two days later (on July 12), after which he instructed the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to examine the negotiations with Ryanair on flights to Ukraine and ordered resumption of the negotiations.
