The president of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), Yurii Miroshnikov, has disclosed details of a regional hub at the Ivano-Frankivsk airport, the creation of which the airline’s supervisory board chairman Aron Mayberg recently announced.
"When we are talking about Ivano-Frankivsk, we do not mean creation of a purely aviation hub but an inter-modal hub, which provides for development of all the transport infrastructure – aviation, rail, and road infrastructure. Ivano-Frankivsk has a good geographical location, better than Lviv in the western region. However, geography is a good thing, but it is far from being everything. It is clear that we are unlikely to connect to New York–Ivano-Frankivsk and Ivano-Frankivsk–Beijing flights in Ivano-Frankivsk. There will be other connections at closer destinations, but the most important thing is overland transport from all parts of the region and an intensive network of routes to Kyiv," Miroshnikov said in an interview with the UNIAN news agency.
At the same time, he added that Ukraine International Airlines would not leave the Lviv airport because Lvov is a popular city and there is passenger traffic to the city, although the local airport is "huge" for the current level of demand.
According to Miroshnikov, whatever plans the carrier makes, there are realistically no full-scale aviation hubs in the country apart from the Boryspil airport, and they will not emerge in the near future because of the low demand for transportation and the weak level of development of the market. "In most countries, 15-20% of the fly population. [In Ukraine] we have 5%," Miroshnikov said.
