Ukraine’s SkyUp quits Zhulyany for Boryspil

SkyUp is switching its Kyiv base airport and is also opening an additional base at Kharkiv (SkyUp)

Upbeat privately owned Ukrainian start-up low-cost carrier (LCC) and charter airline SkyUp Airlines has announced plans to relocate its base from Kyiv International Igor Sikorsky Airport (known as Zhulyany prior to March 2018) to the newly reconstructed Terminal F at the country’s largest airport at Kyiv Boryspil. The decision to move was forced by operational limitations at Zhulyany, the airline’s general director Evgeny Khainatsky explains.

“SkyUp Airlines is enjoying dynamic development. We are planning [further] fleet and network expansion. We can already see that Kyiv [Zhulyany] airport is working with our heavy aircraft at the limits of its capacities, both in terms of operations and also in terms of the runway parameters. So we made the decision to relocate SkyUp Airlines’ aircraft to Boryspil Airport’s Terminal F, which will resume operations in late March after some reconstruction and refurbishment. We view this as the next milestone in our development, paving the way to launching new destinations and adding frequencies,” Khainatsky further emphasises.

SkyUp, which operates flights on behalf of holiday travel company JoinUp!, has also announced it will base one of its aircraft, a 189-seat Boeing 737-800, at Kharkiv. That aircraft operates once-weekly flights to Sharjah (UAE), daily charter services to Sharm-El-Sheikh (Egypt) and also feeds passengers from smaller cities in Ukraine for connecting flights to Sharm-El-Sheikh.

SkyUp Airlines, which launched operations in May of last year, carried 441,600 passengers in its first seven months of operations. Its fleet consists of four Boeing 737-800s and a Boeing 737-700.