Page 62 - UKRRptDec20

summer, SkyUp said it had lost $30mn and UIA said it had lost $60mn. Neither airline has received state aid.
About $110mn will be invested next year in 10 regional airports, ​largely for runway and navigational improvements, according to Kirill Khomyakov, head of Ukrinfraproekt, the State Agency for Infrastructure Projects. According to an Agency map posted by the centre for Transportation Strategies, the airports are: Kherson, Cherkassy, Rivne, Vinnitsa, Uzhgorod, Ivano-Frankovsk, Chernivtsi, Poltava, Odessa and Dnipro. During the recent local election campaign, President Zelenskiy also promised to rebuild the runway at Sumy’s airport.
● Trains
Ukrzaliznytsia plans to increase five-fold its investments next year in wagons, locomotives and track – to almost $1bn​, Irakli Ezugbaya, the new cargo director for the state railroad, told the centre for Transportation Strategies. Capital investments will stay at that level for 2022. In 2023, investments will make another jump, this time by 50%, to $1.5bn.
Two months into the job as head of Ukraine’s state railroad, Volodymyr Zhmak announced yesterday he will drop a $1bn framework agreement signed in 2018 to buy as many as 200 diesel locomotives from Wabtec Corporation, formerly GE Transportation. “As for cooperation with General Electric, today I do not see the need for further purchase of General Electric locomotives,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv. “Our goal is to switch to electric locomotives, because it is much more economical.” Of Ukrzaliznytsia’s 23,300 km of track, only 44% is electrified.
Through late July, Ukrainian officials repeatedly said they are negotiating to sign a contract by the end of this year to buy another 40 locomotives from Wabtec​ – a purchase that would carry a $185mn price tag. This would build on an initial purchase of 30 Wabtec diesel locomotives in 2018-2019. Last January, President Zelenskiy told visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: “The Ministry of Infrastructure and Ukrzaliznytsia are already negotiating the purchase of a new batch of American-made locomotives.”
Most of UZ’s rolling stock have passed their intended life expectancies,
Zhmak gave these ‘depreciation rates: UZ’s 958 electric locomotives and 227 diesel locomotives -- 96%; 41,138 freight cars - 89%; and 2,040 passenger cars - 88%. To accelerate renewal of the fleet, he said UZ will spend $250mn next year to produce 4,200 new freight cars and to overhaul up to 20,000. The railroad plans to spend $145 to overhaul locomotives. Ukraine has six locomotive repair plants. The nation’s sole locomotive production plant is in the part of Luhansk Region now under Russian control.
Austria’s Rail Cargo Group is launching a new weekly container freight train from central China to Vienna, through Ukraine. ​Separately, Rail Cargo, a unit of Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), recently announced that it is doubling – to twice a week -- the frequency of its freight trains from Xian, China to Budapest, also through Ukraine. Previously, some China-Central Europe trains passed through Belarus. The China-Kazakhstan-Russia-Ukraine route provides “the best geopolitically, the fastest and most stable solution for the transportation of small goods between Xi'an and Vienna on a stable rail route,” the Austrian company told Ukraine’s centre for Transportation Strategies.
62​ UKRAINE Country Report​ December 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com