MIU does not abandon plans to create a national airline
The Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine continues to consider it expedient to create a national air carrier in the future.
Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov presented the arguments in favor of the creation of a state airline in an interview with Economic Truth.
"If we had such an operator before the war, then we certainly could have kept the main directions, regardless of the existing threats.
You remember how difficult it was before a large-scale war to keep the airlines that were ready to fly in Ukraine until the last. Or, for example, planes did not leave Kyiv at night, and even if they arrived at one o'clock in the morning, they still took off and did not spend the night in the country. Many airlines simply stopped flying.
Besides, when the war ends, not all airlines will immediately return to the country," the minister said.
To the journalists' remark that "state-owned is mostly associated with ineffectiveness," Kubrakov replied: "Each step of launching a national air carrier was studied and worked out in detail by our French consultants. They were the ones who recommended us to launch a new state-owned airline on the eve of the launch of common airspace with the EU - the new player had a chance to survive in competition with European air carriers".
We will remind that the creation of the Ukrainian National Airlines (UNA) was officially announced at the end of 2021. It was supposed to start flights in 2022 with two domestic and 14 international flights.
In July 2022, the Ukraine Recovery Conference was held in Switzerland. The plan for the recovery of Ukraine presented at the meeting in Lugano, among other things, provides for the allocation of UAH 2.5 billion for the creation of a national air carrier (implementation period - 2023-2025). The project for this period includes obtaining a license, an operator's certificate, other permits necessary for the start of operations, the lease or purchase of 2 aircraft.