Boryspil Airport traffic increased in both domestic and international lines

Boryspil airport (Photo by Boryspil airport)

Passenger flow of the largest Ukrainian air gateway, Kyiv Boryspil International Airport, increased in 2015 both in domestic and international air traffic, according to information published by the airport. From January to December last year, 6.7 million passengers were served on international routes through Boryspil, 5.6% more than in 2014. At the same time, 578 thousand passengers were served on domestic routes, showing 5.5% growth. The international passenger traffic in Boryspil started growing in March and domestic traffic in April of last year.

The total number of passengers, which amounted to almost 7.3 million, turned out to be 11.2% more than the relevant figure in the financial plan. Year-on-year growth ran at 5.6%.

In 2015, over 68.7 thousand flights were operated from Ukraine’s largest airport (4.6% less as compared to 2014), 61.6 thousand of them to international destinations and over 7.1 thousand to domestic destinations. Mail handling increased by 2.4%, exceeding 5 thousand tons. Cargo handling decreased by 0.7%, with over 25 thousand tons handled.

Growth of the majority of figures took place in spite of a significant cutback in the volume of air services on the Ukrainian market. This was due to lingering unrest in the eastern part of the country, a tough economic situation including weakening of the national currency and the suspension of air services with the Russian Federation.

Boryspil achieved this positive trend trough development of the airport’s transit capacity and close cooperation with Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), Ukraine’s flagship airline and its largest national carrier (in 2015 the UIA increased its route network and showed a 26.6% traffic growth). As a result, the number of transit passengers increased by 69%, amounting to 774.7 thousand passengers. In addition, in 2015, the airport considerably reduced the aircraft handling time, while their seat load factor increased by 6.5 pp, up to 79.5%.

In 2015, Boryspil brought in two new foreign carriers: Adria Airways (Slovenia) and SCAT (Kazakhstan). New scheduled destinations include Beijing (China), Kosice (Slovakia), Kutaisi (Georgia), Monastir (Tunisia), Shymkent (Kazakhstan) and Zaporizhia (Ukraine).

Boryspil served 68% of all passengers in Ukraine in 2015 (compared to 52% and 63% in 2013 and 2014, respectively). Odessa became the second busiest airport, serving 8.9% of the total number of air passengers in Ukraine.

According to information published by the Odessa Airport, its traffic increased by 9.8% in 2016, up to 949.1 thousand people; out of them 758.3 thousand passengers (an increase of 9.3%) flew to domestic destinations and 190.8 thousand persons (an increase of 12.2%) to international destinations.

“After the volume of air services fell in 2014, we have been observing a passenger traffic restoration since April 2015 at a level of 25 to 40% per month,” announced Odessa’s airport director, Vitaly Portianko.

Source: Boryspil Airport

The share of Kyiv’s second airport, Zhuliany, constituted 8.8% of the total Ukrainian passenger traffic, Lviv Airport served 5.3%, followed by Kharkiv Airport with 3.5%, Dnipropetrovsk Airport with 3.2%, Zaporizhia Airport with 1.2% and Kherson Airport with 0.6%.

In 2015, the total volume of traffic through Ukrainian airports decreased by 1.8% and amounted to 10.7 million passengers. As for Boryspil and Odessa Airport, managers are enthusiastic about 2016 prospects. The former is forecasting a 2% growth of the total number of passengers, as compared to 2015 (to 7.4 million passengers). Both airports are hopeful about bringing in new carriers and increasing flight frequencies. In addition, Odessa Airport anticipates introduction of a visa-free regime between the EU and Ukraine.