Page 64 - UKRRptNov19

kilometer short of Lviv airport early on October 7, killing five of the eight people on board. Flying from Vigo, Spain, the Ukraine Air Alliance charter was trying to make a scheduled refueling stop in Lviv when it crashed in woods near a football stadium. The three survivors were seriously injured, according to State Emergency Service. Lviv airport was briefly closed on Friday morning.
Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, plans to carry one third more passengers on its Ukraine routes next year, hitting 2.1mn. To reach this goal, the discount airline plans to increase its routes by 72%, adding 18 routes to its current 25. Aimed at migrant workers, most of the new flights will go to Poland and Germany. In two weeks, Ryanair starts flights from Kharkiv to Poznan and Vilnius. From Ukraine, Ryanair flies from Kyiv Boryspil, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Odesa.
To boost domestic aviation in Ukraine, Europe’s largest nation, the government plans to introduce a bill to abolish value-added tax on domestic flights by the end of this year, Infrastructure Minister Vladislav Krykliy said at a press conference with O’Brien. The VAT tax artificially suppresses domestic air travel, complains airline executives. There is no VAT on international tickets.
● Trains
Ukraine’s future role as rail transit country for Chinese goods to Central Europe was reaffirmed Wednesday by the arrival from China of a 44-car freight train at Dobra, Slovakia, just across the border from Chop, Zakarpattia. Carrying Chinese goods for Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, the train took 14 days to travel to Slovakia from Xi’an, in central China. Slovakia wants to win 50% of all railway traffic between Europe and China, writes RailFreight.com. With the collapse of eastern trade with the former Soviet Union, Slovakia has the capacity to handle 25 additional container trains from China, estimates Slovakia’s Ministry of Transport and Construction.
Lemtrans, DTEK, Ferrexpo, and Kernel are preparing to run private freight trains as soon as enabling legislation is passed, according to the centre for Transportation Strategies. Dmitry Demidovich, Lemtrans director for the development, says company-owned locomotives would cut in half – to four days -- the turn around time for coal trains running 250 km from Aromatna, Dnipropetrovsk Region to Enerhodar power plant in Zaporizhia. DTEK also wants to ship coal to the same power plant. Ferrexpo wants to ship iron pellets to Pivdenii, the Black Sea Port. Kernel wants to ship grain to ports.
The EBRD plans to loan Ukrzaliznytsia $100mn to modernize Ukraine’s portion of the Trans-European Transport Network, or TEN-T, Yevhen Kravtsov, the state railroad CEO, writes on Facebook. Stressing the tender will follow EBRD rules, he writes: “70% of the $100mn will go to modernize infrastructure..30% will go to updating of [electronic systems].”
● Ships
Delays of cargo ships serving Ukraine’s two Azov, Mariupol, and Berdyansk, doubled in August and September compared to the summer months, according to a new study. Russian Coast Guard boats force Ukraine- bound ships entering the Kerch Strait to wait two days to enter the Azov, and then three days to leave the Azov, according to the study by the
64 UKRAINE Country Report November 2019 www.intellinews.com