While the newly created Association of Ukrainian Aviation Enterprises is working on the amendments to the widely criticized rules prepared by the industry regulator, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), seen as a new rules' main beneficiary, tries to push forward the old version through a court.
Rules
that restrict new players from coming to the market, especially if they’re
foreign-owned, were registered Nov.13, but Justice Ministry suspended them Nov.
26 after the outburst of public outrage.
Afterwards, new Infrastructure Minister Andriy
Pyvovarsky asked the companies, unhappy with the regulations, to submit their
vision of the reform that is allegedly bringing the local market closer to the
European Union standards.
Companies developed the draft of what needs to
be done on the local aviation market, dominated by UIA, whose ties to Dnipropetrovsk
Oblast governor Igor Kolomoisky have been admitted by the business scene actors
but never confirmed by Kolomoisky himself. Industry players asked to keep
prerequisites for entering the market as they were before.
UIA stayed away of the discussion calling it
one “solving business tasks of a miserable group of market players who
pretend to protect the interests of the whole sector” in a Dec. 16
statement. Moreover, company said it is going to sue Justice Ministry’s Nov. 26
decision to suspend the rules in court.
Admitting that the new rules benefit UIA,
company president Yuriy Miroshnykov said as the largest player on the market it
deserves it. “UIA should have special conditions because we are big
company and give a lot to the Ukrainian economy,” he said.
The rules that the industry association opposes
would also allow UIA receive some routes to Asia that they weren’t able to get
for so long, Miroshnykov added.
Kyiv
Post staff writer OlenaGordiienko can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post intern
Anna Romandash contributed to this report.
