Ryanair has cancelled its planned entry into Ukraine, blaming Kiev airport’s ‘failure to honour a growth agreement’ that it struck in March this year.
The airline had planned to fly four routes to Kiev and seven to Lviv, with overall capacity of 500,000 passengers.
But chief commercial officer David O’Brien said Kiev airport ‘has demonstrated that Ukraine is not yet a sufficiently mature or reliable business location to invest valuable Ryanair aircraft capacity’.
Ryanair said it ‘sincerely apologises’ to customers who have already booked, adding they will all contacted by email and refunded for their cancelled flights.
O’Brien said: "Kiev Airport’s failure to honour commitments will result in the loss of over 500,000 customers and 400 airport jobs in the first year alone, which would have provided a significant boost to the Ukrainian economy.
"We regret also that Lviv Airport has fallen victim to Kiev Airport’s decision."
"Ryanair will now transfer this capacity to competing markets, such as Germany, Israel and Poland instead.
"Ryanair will grow from 130 million passengers this year to 200 million passengers by 2024 and retains the hope that Ukraine might participate in this growth at some point in the future."
