The Irish lowcost air carrier Ryanair has officially entered the Ukrainian market and will launch flights between nine European destinations and the Kyiv and Lviv airports on 30 October 2017.
At a joint press conference with Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan in Kyiv on March 15, Chief Commercial Officer of Ryanair David O’Brien announced that Ryanair will launch nine new flights connecting Kyiv with Stockholm, Manchester, London, and Eindhoven, and Lviv with Berlin, Wroclaw, Krakow, Memmingen, and Budapest, avianews reported.
O’Brien told that the air company plans to transport 500,000 passengers on these flights during its first year of operations, but is not planning to open domestic flights inside Ukraine.
Ukraine will become the 34th country in Ryanair’s network. Negotiations on the budget air carrier’s entrance to the Ukrainian market were conducted starting from 2011.
Ticket sales to these destinations have already started and are possible via the website www.ryanair.com or the mobile app.
The cheapest plane tickets cost EUR 19.99 – but this is a discount price which will only be active until midnight of March 16.
Volodymyr Omelian told at the press conference that air travels of Ukrainian passengers rose by 30% in 2016 compared to 2015 and that a total of 4% Ukrainians traveled by airplane in 2016.
Other lowcosters are expanding in Ukraine too – on 14 March, WizzAir announced it is opening four additional flights to Ukraine.
Read more: Wizz Air to launch four new flights to Ukraine
The first Ryanair airplane landed at the Kyiv Zhuliany airport one day earlier, on 14 March.
Ryanair is Europe’s largest budget air carrier from Ireland, with its main office in Dublin. It was founded in 1985 by the Irish millionaire Tony Ryan as a regional air carrier. At first, the company was unprofitable until in 1995 it was headed by Michael O’Leary, who focused on the concept of cheap airlines. Afterward, it entered the European market where it uses small provincial airports. The most loaded and profitable flight is between London and Dublin.
Ryanair now services over 1,600 connections between 180 airports in 28 European countries and Marocco, with over 1,800 flights per day. Last year it transported 120 million passengers. The average ticket price is EUR 46.