Number of flights in Ukraine's sky down by 96% in late March over coronavirus lockdown

The country's air traffic in March decreased by 37.5% year-over-year.

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The Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE) says the number of flights in Ukraine's airspace decreased by 96% in the last week of March over the novel COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

"The number of flights in the airspace of Ukraine in the third week of March was down by 86.2%, whereas it fell by 96.2% in the last week," the company's press service said on April 13.

UkSATSE added there had been a sharp decrease in flying rates in Ukraine's airspace since March 17 due to the closure of state border checkpoints for regular passenger flights over the COVID-19 spread.

"In total, the enterprise in March 2020 served 13,323 flights, including 1,443 domestic ones (44.9% down year-over-year/y-o-y) 6,653 international (41.1% down), and 5,227 transit (29.5% down)," the report said.

Moreover, the country's air traffic in March decreased by 37.5% y-o-y.

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"However, it should be clear that the percentage takes into account a slight decrease in air traffic in the first half of the month and the rapid decline dynamics in the second half of March," the press service added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a coronavirus pandemic on March 11.

Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers on March 12 decided to introduce a nationwide quarantine for three weeks to prevent the disease from spreading, as well as to ban all railway, air and bus intercity and interregional passenger traffic, along with subway traffic, from March 18.

On March 25, the national quarantine was extended, while the national emergency situation was introduced throughout the country until April 24.

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