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UIA urges the Ukrainian authorities to immediately take measures to prevent similar halts in future.
Ukraine's largest air carrier, Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), has reported that the departure of 22 flights from Boryspil International Airport was delayed for one or two hours late on January 29 because of aircraft refueling halts.
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The jet fuel supplier officially reported its dispute with the State Fiscal Service (SFS) of Ukraine over a mechanism of repaying bills of credit when selling jet fuel as the cause behind the refueling halt. The new provisions of the Tax Code, which entered into force on January 1, 2019, introduced the mechanism. Refueling was suspended despite the fact that UIA fulfills all its obligations under a jet fuel supply contract with Boryspil Airport.
In response to this situation, UIA was forced to provide the jet fuel supplier with a letter of guarantee that possible penalties from the SFS related to refueling on the evening of January 29 would be compensated. UIA took this step to prevent possible negative consequences for itself and its passengers, whose interests have always been a priority for the airline. In this particular case, the interests of more than 3,000 passengers were affected.
UIA urges the Ukrainian government, the Infrastructure and Finance Ministries, as well as other authorities concerned to immediately address the situation and take measures to prevent it in future.
UNIAN memo. UIA was founded in 1992. It is a 100% privately owned company. The airline connects Ukraine with over 50 capitals and key cities of Europe, Asia, America, Africa, the Middle East, and CIS countries and provides connections with its international partners' flights to over 3,000 other destinations worldwide. UIA operates over 1,100 scheduled flights per week. Currently, UIA has 42 aircraft including 30 medium-haul Boeing 737 NG aircraft whose average age is 8.7 years. The average age of UIA's fleet is 10.5 years. Boryspil Airport is the base airport for UIA.