KYIV, Sept 12 – Ukraine’s major private air carrier Aerosvit said on Tuesday it would introduce new domestic and international flights and increase its fleet in line with a new corporate strategy.
Aerosvit Director General Hryhoriy Hurtovoi told Reuters in an interview the company would seek new markets, because the development of Ukrainian routes is snagged on the low purchasing power in Ukraine, where salaries average $40 a month.
“Our main task today is to enter richer markets like countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Russia and offer new flights and more comfortable transit routes via Kyiv,” he said.
In early November, Aerosvit will launch new regular flights to Prague, Warsaw and Bucharest from Kyiv and a flight to Larnaka from the Black Sea port of Odessa.
Hurtovoi said the company also planned to add flights to Israel. Every week, Aerosvit makes nine regular flights to Tel Aviv from Kyiv, Dnipropertrovsk, Simferopol and Odessa.
He said in the winter season Aerosvit would make charter flights to Egypt.
Next year, flights will be made to the Baltic states and Scandinavia, Hurtovoi said.
“We also have a programme to launch new flights to Russian cities like St Petersburg, Samara, Novosibirsk.” Russia is Ukraine’s leading trading partner.
GOOD RESULTS, MODERNIZATION PLANS
Hurtovoi said the company, which currently serves 22 destinations in Ukraine and abroad, planned to increase its passenger turnover by 40 percent this year compared to 1999.
“The company has the highest growth rate on Ukraine’s market,” he said.
Aerosvit expects its sales turnover to grow to $42 million this year from $30 million in 1999. Hurtovoi said the company expected to finish the year without losses but declined to give absolute or comparative figures.
Aerosvit’s passenger turnover is seen rising to 250,000 people this year from 170,000 in 1999.
The company handled 350 tons of cargo in the first eight months of this year. Cargo turnover totalled 250 tons in the whole of 1999.
Aerosvit plans to modernise and increase its fleet.
The company, which currently operates three leased and one owned Boeing-737, plans to write off one Boeing 737-200 and lease a new Boeing-737-300 by the start of 2001, Hurtovoi said.
He also said the company would cooperate with Ukraine’s Antonov aircraft design bureau on joint use of new Antonov An-140 passenger aircraft for domestic flights.
“If the results (of joint work) are positive, we can add to our fleet four or five An-140s in 2001-2002,” Hurtovoi said.
