European low-cost airlines are preparing to return to Ukraine as soon as a peace agreement is signed that will allow Ukrainian airports to reopen to travelers, as they predict a boom in "catastrophe tourism" and the return of people to the country, the Financial Times reports, writes UNN.
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Wizz Air said it plans to base 15 aircraft in the country within two years of a peace deal, rising to 50 in seven years, while Ryanair said it could resume services within two weeks of any agreement.
We have planned this, as soon as the airspace opens, we will resume our operations very quickly. Resuming operations will be a significant opportunity for us.
In addition to a wave of returning Ukrainians and significant reconstruction efforts, Váradi predicted a wave of "catastrophe tourism" in the country, with travelers visiting areas affected by man-made or natural disasters. "When the Berlin Wall fell, millions of people went there to see it," he said.
Wizz, headquartered in Hungary, was the largest non-Ukrainian airline operating in the country before Moscow's 2022 invasion forced international airlines to cease operations. With over 5,000 flights to Ukraine in 2021, the group was the third largest carrier after Russian Aeroflot and Windrose, a Ukrainian charter group, that year.
In 2019, the peak of air travel before the pandemic, about 15 million passengers flew to Ukraine. According to aviation consulting firm Cirium, in 2021, the year before Russia's invasion, the airline carried about 10.8 million people.
Ryanair executives visited key Ukrainian airports with a plan to increase passenger numbers to 4 million. Before the closure of Ukrainian airports, the airline carried about 1.5 million people annually to Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa.
We will start selling flights within two weeks, the only question is when it will be safe to fly
He said that the airline, which has aircraft based at 95 airports across Europe, could open routes from any of its bases without disrupting the rest of its network, allowing the carrier to move faster than competitors with fewer bases.
"You can fly from Dublin, Shannon, Cork, across the UK or Europe, you can have three, four, five flights a week. You can easily change direction in Ukraine," he said. "There will be no difficulty in carrying 4 million passengers there."
EasyJet, which previously did not fly to Ukraine, is also exploring the possibility of opening routes there. CEO Kenton Jarvis said the country promises to be "Europe's biggest construction project" and people "will want to return home when it's safe at home."
"It's the missing piece of Europe right now," he said.
From an operational perspective, air traffic control can be started quite quickly, it all depends on the condition of the airports and runways, and on ensuring that terminals and runways operate to the highest safety standards.
Unlike Wizz and Ryanair, the airline does not plan to base aircraft in Ukraine in the near future.
The EU Aviation Safety Agency currently advises airlines not to fly over Ukrainian airspace or land in the country.
"Airspace and critical infrastructure, including airports, are subject to military action, which creates risks to the safety of civilian aircraft. In particular, there is a risk of both intentional targeting and misidentification of civilian aircraft," they warn.
In 2014, the publication notes, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down while flying over eastern Ukraine.
"Cirium data shows that only one airline - Russian budget carrier Smartavia - has registered flights to the country in the last two years," the publication says.