Page 58 - UKRRptMay19

9.1.3 Transport sector news
● Planes
Passenger traffic at Ukraine’s airports grew by 22% q-o-q, to 4.4mn people, reports the State Aviation Administration. Of this flow, 91% flew internationally. Lviv and Kyiv Sikorsky airports grew the fastest. Ukraine’s top six airports are: Kyiv Boryspil – 2.7mn passengers +15%; Kyiv Sikorsky – 638,000 passengers +44%; Lviv – 370,000 passengers +53.5%; Kharkiv – 221,000 passengers +29%; Zaporizhia – 97,000 passengers +17%; and Dnipro – 62,000 passengers +12%.
Setting an ambitious goal for air travel, the government wants to nearly quadruple air passengers in the 2020s, to 80mn in 2030. Building on a 25% jump last year, to 20.5mn air travelers, the Infrastructure Ministry sets this 2030 target in its new Aviation Transport Strategy. By comparison, Poland with roughly the same size population of Ukraine, but half the territory, carried only 38mn air passengers in 2017.
Consolidating its role as Western Ukraine’s air hub, Lviv airport saw its passenger flow jump by 53.5% during the first quarter of this year compared to last year. Growing faster than last year’s rate of 48%, Lviv could handle 2.5mn passengers this year, more than triple’s the city’s population. Boosting to 38 the number of cities with direct, scheduled flights to Lviv, the city added in the last month: Wizz Air to Copenhagen; Motor Sich to Uzhgorod; and airBaltic to Riga.
● Trains
Behind the start of China-EU container trains through Ukraine is tidal wave of transcontinental train traffic, reports World Railways, a Moscow- based news site. Last year, 6,363 freight trains traveled between China and the EU – almost one an hour and nearly equal to the 8,328 trains that made the trip during the previous seven years. From a first China-EU train in March 2011– from Chonquing to Duisburg, Germany – the China-EU network has grown to link 62 Chinese and 51 EU cities. Initially one sided, the rail traffic is more balanced, increasingly carrying EU exports to China. With traffic backing up at the Poland-Belarus gauge break border, Chinese shippers are experimenting with routing freight trains through Ukraine.
With freight trains backing up at the Belarus-Poland border, China plans to start in June a second container route through Ukraine to Europe, CTS reports, citing Rakhmetolla Kudaibergenov, secretary general of the Trans- Caspian International Transport Route. Trains coming from the former Soviet Union must stop at the western borders of Belarus or Ukraine to switch to European gauge tracks. Last week, a weekly China-to-Hungary freight train started service, also passing through Ukraine. The Trans-Caspian official said: “The initiative to create a new logistics product belongs to the Chinese side due to the shortage of cargo transportation capacities to Europe through Belarus.”
● Ships
Yuzhne confirmed its leadership as Ukraine’s busiest port, handling 11.6mn tons, up by 19%. Mykolaiv came in second, with 8.2mn, up 26%. Chornomorsk dethroned Odesa for third place, handling 6.4mn tons, up 23%.
58 UKRAINE Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com