Airlines operating in Ukraine will start gradually resuming their international flights in spring 2021, their flight schedules show.
Today foreigners can freely travel to Ukraine but the country is still under lockdown, which will last through Jan. 24 to curb the spread of the coronavirus in the country, where about 7,000 new cases are reported daily.
Ukrainians can travel to 75 countries, but most of the European Union states remain closed for travel purposes.
Starting on March 28, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), Ukraine’s flagship air carrier, will start gradually resuming its flights to Europe from Kyiv Boryspil International Airport, Ukraine’s main airport, according to the company’s website.
UIA plans to reopen 43 routes to Europe’s capitals, including Paris, London and Rome. The airline started reopening some flights to France and Britain in December and now it plans to bring back more flights to these destinations.
UIA also already flies to the Netherlands, Germany, Turkey, Israel and Switzerland.
Ukrainian low-cost airline SkyUp is also reopening many of its flights in spring, according to the company’s website.
Tickets had already been available for Spain, Bulgaria, France, Czech Republic, Italy, Armenia, Portugal, Albania, Israel since May 2020, but in spring, the company will resume flying to Germany, Poland and Denmark.
Besides, SkyUp will also introduce more routes in 2021. The company got the approval on Jan. 4 to start operating 11 new international destinations. One of them is German’s Hamburg, and SkyUp has already started selling tickets. The nearest available flight is in May.
Now the low-cost airlines can also start flying to London three times a week, but the company hasn’t announced the launch of this destination yet.
Irish low-cost airline Ryanair plans to resume its flights from Ukraine to Greece, Poland and Spain as early as in February, according to the analysis of the company’s schedule by aviation website Avianews. By the end of March, the company plans to resume flying to 26 European cities from Ukraine.
Hungary-based low-cost Wizz Air had reopened most of its flights in July 2020, according to the company’s website, offering trips to 15 countries from Ukraine, including to Italy, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Malta, Cyprus and Spain.
Back in December 2020, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in an interview to news website RBC Ukraine that the lockdown was not a threat to overseas travel. “The time will come when the coronavirus disappears and we will be free to travel again. We want to be prepared to the greatest possible extent before it happens,” Kuleba said.
All the airlines have to operate under a range of hygiene measures to ensure the health and safety of the passengers and crew amid the global pandemic.
Each traveler must present proof of a negative COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, the most accurate way of diagnosing the novel coronavirus.
On board, both cabin crew and passengers are required to wear facemasks; cabin crew must also wear rubber gloves.
Travel restrictions were first imposed in March 2020 in Ukraine to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the country — Ukraine shut down its airspace for regular commercial flights.
Starting in June 2020, the country started gradually resuming international flights, following each destination’s acceptance rules.
As of Jan. 10, 75 countries have reopened their borders to Ukrainians, including Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania and Montenegro. Most of the Western European countries, however, remain closed to Ukrainians who want to go there for travel purposes.
Each EU member defines its own rules for accepting foreigners and non-essential travel is still forbidden in most of them. The U.K., France, Germany and Israel have all imposed additional restrictions after a new more contagious variant of COVID-19 swept the globe in late December.
