Atlasjet, a Turkish low-cost airline, is entering the Ukrainian market by establishing its own subsidiary here that will be conducting flights from Kyiv to Kharkiv, Lviv and Odesa as well as to Istanbul, Moscow and Tel Aviv.
Company’s Ukrainian unit will start operating on Sep. 15, said Ali Murat
Ersoy, Atlasjet’s president. It will fly out of Boryspil International Airport
terminal B.
He declined to say how many passengers he expects his airline to service
this year. “If all goes well, we will expand the number of routes,” Ersoy
added.
Turkey is the most popular destination for Ukrainian tourists travelling
abroad, according to the Otpusk.com, website devoted to covering the tourism
business. The number of Ukrainian tourists to Turkey in 2013 rose by 19 percent
year-on-year to 756,000, the news portal UBR reported.
Atlasjet began operations in 2001 and has 18 passenger aircraft, mostly
Airbus’ A321s, that fly to several destinations within Turkey as well as
London, Greece, Iran, Northern Cyprus, and Georgia. It has own units in Iraq,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. At home, Atlasjet faces severe competition from the Turkish
Airlines and Pegasus Hava Tasimaciligi, a low-coster.
“We are also planning to make a large aircraft order soon and some
of those new aircraft will be assigned to the operations in Ukraine,”
Ersoy mentioned.
During the Aug. 4 announcement ceremony, he lamented Ukraine’s high fuel
costs, which are up to 70 percent higher than elsewhere in Europe, according to
him. Moreover, he sees restrictions on the number of hours for the flight crew
to stay aboard as another problem of Ukrainian market.
Deputy Infrastructure Minister Petro Pinkas stated that in the first six
months of this year air passenger travel in Ukraine is down by 50 percent
year-on-year, mainly on account of the loss of Crimea and the war in the east
that has closed Donetsk and Luhansk airports and frightened people from flying
overall. July 17 accident with shooting down the Malaysia Airlines’ MH17 plane
by Russia-backed separatists in Donbas, when 298 people died, makes the airline
companies willing to do business in Ukraine to think twice.
Meanwhile, Boryspil Airport general director Serhiy Hombolevsky said
that his airport had suffered only a five percent drop this year. He added that
two days after the downing of MH17 all flights in and around Ukraine were
operating normally.
Last year Ukrainian airports serviced 15 million passengers on a market,
dominated by the Capital Investment Project, owned by Aaron Mayberg but
reportedly related to Ihor Kolomoisky, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast governor. Company
controls Ukraine International Airlines, Donbasaero, Dniproavia and Windrose.
Low-cost
segment
Hungary’s Wizzair, which was the first foreign low-cost carrier to enter
the Ukrainian market back in 2008, meanwhile announced that from Sept 30 it
would be adding the route Kyiv-Moscow, flying from Zhulyany International
Airport into Vnukovo, three times a week. Wizzair mainly flies to smaller
airports located near major European cities, such as London, Barcelona and
Oslo, as well as Kutaisi, Georgia.
Low-cost end of the Ukrainian market is controlled by local Transaero,
UTair, Ukraine Mediterranean Airlines and Wind Rose, while the list of key
foreign players also includes Russian S7 and United Arab Emirates’ flyDubai.
Kyiv Post
business journalist Evan Ostryzniuk can be reached at [email protected].
