When will the first plane depart from Ukraine since the beginning of the war: the date has been announced
7 November 2024 16:00
By the end of January 2025, Ukraine will resume flights from one of its airports. This statement was made by Crispin Ellison, Senior Partner at Marsh McLennan, at the 10th Kyiv International Economic Forum (KIEF) in Kyiv on Thursday, November 7, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
“I think if we’re lucky, in January we’ll have five or six airlines that want to fly,” Ellison said.
He insists that the first planes should fly out of Lviv airport because it is more cost-effective in terms of transportation insurance. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insists that Boryspil airport be opened first.
“The president will hate me for saying this, because he is focused on Boryspil, but the initial focus is on Lviv. It’s a seven-minute flight from Poland. I keep saying that Lviv is much safer than Tel Aviv. People don’t like it when I say that, but I do,” said Crispin Ellison.
The Marsh McLennan senior partner added that the final decision on the resumption of flights to Ukraine will be made by the President’s Office.
Crispin Allison is a senior partner at Marsh McLennan, the world’s largest risk management consulting firm with 85,000 employees, and leads the firm’s work in Ukraine. For the past 25 years, Crispin has been advising governments around the world on their most important issues. Currently, he is working with industry and the government to create an affordable travel insurance system that will allow businessmen and others to visit the country.
As a reminder, in late October 2024 , Supernova Airlines (Nova Poshta) received permission to operate flights on the Lviv-Prague-Lviv and Kyiv-Prague-Lviv routes. The aircraft will operate seven days a week. The right to fly is valid from November 1, 2024, and was obtained for an unlimited period.
However, in a commentary to Suspilne, representatives of Nova Poshta explained that the permit is technical and no one is going to start flights while the fighting is ongoing.
“In order to be able to fly immediately after the opening of Ukrainian airspace, you need to obtain a commercial permit. Obtaining this permit means that we will be able to fly the specified routes as soon as it becomes procedurally possible, i.e. when the airspace is reopened,” the company said.
Ukraine’s airspace was closed to civil aviation on February 24, 2022, and the issue of resuming flights has been raised many times before. In July 2023, the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine emphasized that the resumption of air traffic is still dangerous due to the constant threat of Russian missile strikes and drones.
