The Zaporizhia airport reopened its main concrete runway on 10 May, avianews.com reports.
According to the Zaporizhia airport’s General Director Viktor Biskupskyi, 2,200 meters out of the runway’s 2,500 meters have thus far been repaired.
The airport expects to repair the remaining 300 meters of the runway before 17 May and begin its full operation on 18 May.
Turkish Airlines resumed flights from Istanbul to Zaporizhia on 10 May as a result of the partial reopening of the concrete runway. Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) will resume flights from Kyiv to Zaporizhia and Atlasjet Ukraine will resume flights from Istanbul to Zaporizhia on 11 May.
The Ukrainian office of Pegasus Airlines told avianews.com that the low-cost airline would resume flights to Zaporizhia from Istanbul after the runway is fully reopened on 18 May. Until then, the airline intends to perform additional flights from Istanbul to the Kharkiv airport.
The Zaporizhia airport closed its main concrete runway for repairs on 26 March. Initially, the repair work was expected to be completed within one month, but it was later extended until 9 May. The airport attributed the delay in completing the repair work to unfavorable weather conditions.
UIA, Atlasjet Ukraine, Pegasus Airlines, and Turkish Airlines canceled regular flights to Zaporizhia because of the repair work on the runway.
Only the Motor Sich airline continued operating regular flights from Zaporizhia to Kyiv and Minsk on An-140 and An-24 aircraft, which are capable of using an unpaved runway in Zaporizhia. However, the airline was forced to cancel these flights for one week in April due to deterioration of weather conditions, which turned the unpaved runway muddy.
