Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) has postponed the launch of regular transcontinental flights between Kyiv and New York to spring 2021.

UIA announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.

According to the airline, the long-haul flights are being planned in advance and all the relevant changes on the market and their forecast impact on the future are being taken into account.

"A number of negative factors have emerged recently: the revision of the recovery of Ukraine's GDP in 2020 and 2021 due to the negative impact of the pandemic on the country's economy; the deterioration of the epidemiological situation in Eastern European countries and Israel; the significant deterioration in the political situation in the Caucasus, which has led to the cancellation of flights to Yerevan, Baku, and Tbilisi, which were supposed to provide transit flows through Kyiv to the United States. The combination of these factors, which has caused a reduction of direct traffic from Ukraine to New York and transit traffic to the United States, is the reason for the reconsideration of the advisability of resumption of direct flights between Kyiv and New York in 2020 and its postponement to the spring of 2021," the airline said in the statement.

UIA stressed that it continues to plan its flights based solely on objective market and epidemiological factors.

As the CFTS reported earlier, UIA has amended its flight schedule for October. According to the airline, the flight schedule was amended because of the reduction in the load factor on certain European routes.