Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) has announced significant optimization of its routes with the aim of breaking even.
The company announced on October 25 that a new flight timetable with an abbreviated flight program would be introduced for the entire winter season on November 16, 2019.
All of UIA's own regular flights to Western Europe will be operated during the daytime, departing from Kyiv between 9:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. and arriving in Kyiv between 17:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., local time. The frequency of flights between Kyiv and Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Krakow, and Madrid will increase to once per day. Flights on the Kyiv-London and Kyiv-Vilnius routes will be operated twice per day.
All of UIA's own regular flights to Cairo, Dubai, Ankara, Izmir, Yerevan, Baku, and Tehran will be operated at nights, departing from Kyiv between 20:00 and 21:00 and arriving in Kyiv between 07:30 and 08:45 (local time). Flights to Tel Aviv, Istanbul, and Tbilisi will be operated several times per day.
UIA will stop operating flights to Amman, Minsk, and Riga because they are unprofitable.
However, UIA will continue to operate regular flights between Ukrainian cities. It will operate two flights per between Kyiv and Odesa, Kharkiv, and Lviv and one flight per day between Kyiv and Dnipro, Kherson, Chernivtsi, Zaporizhia, and Ivano-Frankivsk.
During the winter, the number of UIA flights between Kyiv and Toronto will increase from two to three per week. In addition, changes will be made to the timetable of flights to New York from November 16: departure from Kyiv will be moved to 11:30 and arrival in Kyiv to 16:20. Flights to the United States and Canada will be operated on Boeing-777 aircraft.
The number of weekly flights between Kyiv and Delhi will increase to five in the 2019/2020 winter season and then to seven in the 2020 summer season. UIA will operate Boeing-767 aircraft on this route.
"Flights between Kyiv and Beijing will be suspended, and the frequency of flights on the Kyiv-Bangkok route will be reduced to three per week. These changes will take effect on November 16 and remain in effect until the government of Ukraine develops an effective solution to creating equal competitive conditions for Ukrainian and foreign carriers flying over the territory of the Russian Federation," the carrier said in a press release.
Due to changes in the plan for long-haul flights, operation of UIA’s duplicate night flights and duplicate daytime flights to eastern destinations will be reduced.
UIA will offer passengers the possibility of changing their routes if possible and refund their ticket prices if it is impossible to change their route or if they reject proposed alternative flights.
As reported earlier, UIA announced the closure of its last flight to Kazakhstan (the Kyiv-Almaty flight) at the end of September because it was unprofitable.
