Air Arabia Increases Ukraine Connectivity

United Arab Emirates (UAE) low-cost carrier Air Arabia is to expand its network in the Ukraine adding flights from its Sharjah base to Donetsk and Kharkiv in October. The new routes will see the airline go into competition with its Dubai-based rival flydubai, which in the next couple of days will also be introducing flights to the two cities, as well as a flight to the capital Kiev; the latter a route already served by Air Arabia from Sharjah.

Air Arabia will introduce a weekly service to Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, from October 7 and a twice weekly link to Donetsk, a major urban centre in eastern Ukraine, from October 12. The airline first entered the Ukraine market in October 2008 when it launched flights between Sharjah and Kiev, initially on a three times weekly basis but increasing to up to seven weekly rotations depending upon the season.

“We are especially pleased to introduce two new destinations in Ukraine, a nation with strong economic and cultural ties with the UAE and wider Gulf region,” said Adel Ali, Group Chief Executive Officer, Air Arabia. “Eight years and over 20 million passengers since Air Arabia pioneered the low-cost airline model in the Middle East and North Africa, we continue to set our sights on entering new markets and further expanding the reach of our award-winning service,”

An estimated 132,000 O&D passengers travelled between the two countries in the past year with the market currently dominated by Ukrainian operators, as highlighted in the table above. Aerosvit Airlines is the largest operator between the two countries, carrying around 60,000 O&D passengers on its five times weekly link between Kiev and Dubai. Ukraine International Airlines also serves this route on a twice weekly basis, as well as offering links from the Ukrainian capital to Abu Dhabi in codeshare with Etihad Airways.