Ukraine International Airlines to cut flights after borders close, again

Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), the county’s largest air carrier, will cancel nine routes and reduce flight frequencies to six destinations for a month, after the government decided to close its borders to foreign citizens to try and stop the spread of COVID-19, the company’s press service announced on its website on Aug. 27.

“We are considering several options, including a radical one that will best serve the airline, its staff and its passengers,” wrote Yevhenii Dykhne, the president of UIA, in the statement.

Starting Sept. 14, the company will not fly from Kyiv to Zaporizhzhia, Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Athens, Geneva, Delhi, Berlin and Chisinau. On Sept. 20, it will add its Kyiv-Kherson flight to that list. UIA will also reduce flight frequencies to Odesa, Paris, Düsseldorf, Brussels, Dubai, Istanbul and Tel-Aviv.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced that Ukraine will close its borders to foreign citizens for a month starting on Aug. 29, he said during a government meeting on Aug. 26. On Aug. 28, media reported that the government had already shut the border.

The entry ban follows the government’s decision to extend the coronavirus quarantine until Oct. 31 due to the rising number of infections in the country, which, over the last week, has been clocking in at nearly 2,000 new cases a day. On the morning of Jan. 28, the country recorded 2,438 new cases in the past 24 hours.

UIA wrote that the ban will affect Ukraine’s weakened aviation industry. Foreign travelers traveling to and from Ukraine represent about 60% of the company’s traffic at the moment, and stopping this flow will hit UIA hard.

“These measures will have a negative impact on Ukraine’s aviation industry, which in the absence of any other state support during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing crisis, is already economically weakened and in critical condition,” the company wrote.

Dykhne said in an interview in April that UIA, which used to operate 1,000 flights a week to 88 destinations, could lose up to $60 million during the first phase of the travel restrictions, which lasted from March 17 to July 15.

“According to the most optimistic scenario, we estimate our losses at $60 million,” Dykhne said back then.

But that was before the new border closing, and the ban is likely to take a toll on businesses and the tourism industry, which have just started to revive after the COVID-19 lockdown.

According to the Association of Incoming Tour Operators, closing the border to foreigners will cause even more severe consequences for the whole tourism industry than the current quarantine restrictions.

In response to the ban, numerous tourism industry players organized a rally on Aug. 28 to demand the government reopen the border.

Otherwise, they say, it is going to kill their business, given that the government has also extended the quarantine measures until Oct. 31, further harming the hospitality sector, which is already reeling after months of quarantine and the previous border closures.