Page 53 - UKRRptFeb20

Ernest Airlines, Sikorsky now is essentially a Wizz Airport. The Budapest-based discount airline accounts for 86% of the airport’s foreign destinations. Last year, 98% of the traffic out of Sikorsky was international.
● Trains
Rail passenger traffic between the EU and Ukraine, grew by 15% y/y last year,​ to 947,000 passengers. About half of the passengers, 482,000, took the train that runs between Kyiv and Przemysl, Poland.
China’s CRCC, the railroad construction giant, and​ ​Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railway) signed a memorandum of cooperation ​on January 20. Goals are to modernize Ukraine’s rail system and to promote Ukraine as a rail transit country for China’s trade with the EU. Ukrzaliznytsia is currently evaluating Chinese electric locomotives for what could be a $1bn deal. At the signing ceremony, Wang Hongwei, deputy general director of CRCC, said his company will open an office in Kyiv this year.
Kyiv Metro ridership was virtually unchanged last year, with the system selling almost half a billion fares​. The ranking of the three lines also is unchanged: Redline - 203mn rides; Blue line - 173mn; and Greenline - 119mn. The busiest and least used stations of the 52 in the system were both on the Redline. Akademmistechko, the line’s Western terminus, handled 21.3mn passengers. Dnipro handled 939,000.
The Ukrainian government has approved a resolution to start a pilot project for the use of private locomotives on selected railway routes​, according to the nation's Infrastructure Ministry.
The project will enable partially reducing a deficit of locomotives in Ukraine and testing new rules and opportunities of the railway transportation market. According to the ministry, several private companies are interested in participating in the pilot project.
The ministry will determine the project's conditions, as well as the routes on which the project will be implemented. Local media earlier reported that subsidiaries of Ukraine’s largest iron ore pellet exporter ​Ferrexpo​ and the SCM Holding owned by the nation's richest oligarch Rinat Akhmetov are ready to participate in a pilot project with their locomotives.
Currently, private companies are not allowed to use their own locomotives on the mainline railways of Ukraine. While use of private railcars is allowed, all the railway infrastructure and mainline locomotives are controlled by Ukraine's state-owned rail monopoly​ U​ krzaliznytsia​.
Alexander Paraschiy at Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capital believes that it might take a couple of years for this pilot project to reach a full liberalisation of the locomotive market.
"Such liberalisation could bring some positives for Ukrzaliznytsia in the short term, but will definitely be risky for the company in the long term. If the locomotive market is liberalised, Ukrzaliznytsia will be able to insist on deregulating locomotive rates, which is likely to lead to rate hikes to the benefit of the state company (which happened after railcar rates were deregulated in 2018)," he wrote in a note on December 5.
53​ UKRAINE Country Report​ February 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com