Ukraine Climbs To Second In Eastern European Air Passenger Volumes

Ukraine rose to second place among Eastern European countries in terms of number of passengers transported in the first half of 2019, the CFTS portal reports, citing the NV Business publication.

According to the publication, a study conducted in 10 Eastern European countries showed that Ukraine overtook Romania for the first time in the first half of 2019 but still lags significantly behind Poland.

“In the first six months of 2019, 22.3 million passengers passed through Polish airports (an 8% increase year-on-year). Ukrainian airports handled 10.7 million passengers (a 20% increase) and Romanian airports 10.5 million (an 8% increase). The Czech Republic and Hungary were fourth and fifth with 8.1 million (5% increase) and 7.6 million passengers (9% increase), respectively," the report states.

The report emphasized that passenger traffic through almost all Ukrainian airports increased in 2019. According to the report, the Boryspil airport was sixth among the largest airports in Eastern Europe. The airport handled 6.7 million passengers (a 20% increase) in the first half of the year.

However, the airport could rise in this ranking at the end of this year because it handled more passengers than the airports of Bucharest and Budapest in May and June.

The Kyiv airport handled 1.33 million passengers (a 16% increase). “But for the runway repair that will be performed in September, the Kyiv airport would have been expected to handle more than 3 million passengers this year,” a Polish analyst said.

“The Lviv airport is the third largest airport in Ukraine. Almost 950,000 passengers (a 45% increase) passed through this airport in the first six months of 2019. It overtook the Poznan and Bratislava airports. The Lviv airport was able to achieve this result became of the resumption of the operations of low-cost airlines, primarily Wizz Air and Ryanair," the report said.

Researchers also emphasized that the situation in the passenger transportation segment in Eastern Europe as a whole will depend heavily on Ukraine. If the country is economically and politically stable, then the market will grow rapidly, considering its potential, especially its population.

As the CFTS portal reported earlier, the world's airlines transported 4.4 billion people in 2018, when passenger transportation by air increased by almost 7%.