Photo from www.facebook.com/Lviv International Airport
New airlines have not yet started to carry out flights to the Lviv airport after the introduction of an "Open Skies" policy there, Infrastructure Minister Andriy Pyvovarsky has said on Ukrainian television’s Channel 5.
"Now we have started an active campaign on attracting new airlines, particularly to Lviv airport, where "open sky" policy has been introduced, but airlines are not in a hurry," the minister stated, adding that the reason for this is low public demand for air transportation due to high fares, as well as continuing fighting in the east of Ukraine, which discourages airlines from entering the Ukrainian market.
Pyvovarsky also noted that since early June the Ministry has been expecting that Atlasjet Ukraine, a member airline of the Turkish group Atlasjet, would start operating international and domestic flights from Lviv and other Ukrainian cities.
On April 2, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine announced the launch of the “Open Skies” experiment now running at Lviv Airport. According to Pyvovarsky, this will allow any air carrier to carry out unhindered flights to Lviv airport provided the permission of the Air Service of Ukraine. At the same time, the minister said, the issue of signing bilateral agreement on Common Aviation Area between Ukraine and the European Union remains unresolved at the level of European countries and cannot be settled by Ukraine unilaterally.
Later, the State Aviation Service proposed that foreign low-cost airlines start air travel to Lviv and asked the air traffic control authorities of several countries to lift restrictions on flights.