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new Kyiv routes to Eindhoven, London, Manchester and Stockholm, starting from October, which will deliver 250,000 customers per year to Kyiv airport. Ryanair will also commence flights to and from Lviv, with even more new routes and lower fares for Ukrainian customers and visitors. In March, Ryanair inked cooperation contracts with Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport and Lviv's Danylo Halytskyi International Airport.
Mykolaiv rail station is a prime candidate for a public private partnership,
Infrastructure Minister Volodomyr Omelyan says. In March, Ukrzaliznitsya starts a two-year, internationally funded project to electrify two lines of track, totaling 300 km, that converge on Mykolaiv in a ‘V.’ Already a rail hub, Mykolaiv has nightly trains from Kyiv and daily trains to Odesa, to the west, and Kherson, to the east. Unimpressed with the condition of the rail station on a visit this week, Omelyan told his press service about broken toilets and the stationmaster who checked into a hospital “so as not to show the results of his ‘work’ for the year.”
A new bill to allow private locomotives on state owned tracks will be submitted to the Rada in the current session, President Poroshenko promises business leaders. Two weeks ago, in a narrow vote, the rejected such legislation. On Wednesday, speaking before foreign business groups, Poroshenko said: “I have the political will to introduce private locomotives.” A few minutes earlier, Yevhen Kravtsov, acting CEO of Ukrzalinytsia, the state railroad, had warned: “If we introduce private locomotives for cargo, we would simply die, because passenger traffic is not profitable.”
Ukraine is going to invest at least $3bn in the country's port industry over the next five years , according to the nation's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan. The minister also said that Kyiv intends to introduce a new approach on concessions. "The law on concession has passed its first reading in the Verkhovna Rada, [Ukraine's parliament]," UNIAN news agency quoted Omelyan as saying on November 15. "We hope it will be adopted. It is seaports that will become the first facilities for concession." These seaports will remain in state ownership, but will be conceded to international companies for 10, 25, and 49 years. "This will double or triple budget revenues compared with the existing lease system," the minister added. In 2017, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said the lender sees using concession contracts in the port sector of Ukraine as the most promising. The EBRD and Ukrainian infrastructure ministry have already begun preparation of pilot projects, which are expected to be implemented according to a new legislative basis.
Through September, air traffic in Ukraine is up 24% y/y, to 15.6mn. Kyiv Sikorsky lead the nation, with a 57% growth in passengers. Among the regional hubs, the biggest growth is at Lviv. There, passengers through October are up 46% to 1.3mn.
The Ukrainian Ukroboronprom state concern will earmark UAH 2.8 billion to be allocated from the national budget for the modernization of its aircraft enterprises if the Verkhovna Rada passes a relevant draft national budget for 2019, which provides for additional financing for Ukroboronprom.
Hungary's budget airline Wizz Air has doubled the number of passengers it carried on Ukraine routes in January-October 2018 to over 1.2mn passengers, a 2.1-fold increase y/y, Interfax Ukraine reports. "During the first
60 UKRAINE Country Report December 2018 www.intellinews.com