Looking beyond war, Kyiv airport pledges prompt return to service when hostilities cease

Kyiv's Boryspil International Airport can start receiving planes already a month after the end of the war, Director General Oleksiy Dubrevskyy told Politico.

"We don’t want to spend one or two years thinking: ‘What do we do after the war?’" Dubrevskyy explained.

Ukraine's largest airport has retained most of its staff and signed agreements with airlines.

Employee maintenance and electricity cost the airport 3.2 million euros per month. The hub also spent 1.8 million euros to restore infrastructure damaged by Russian strikes.

"It’s not cheap … we’re eating what we earned in 2021," he said.

Dubrevskyy was in Brussels last month to update representatives of the EU and international banking institutions on the current situation at the airport and to ask for financial support.

He is convinced that millions of Ukrainian refugees will return home after the war ends.

"We have a new market niche which we never had before: visiting friends and relatives," the head of Boryspil airport noted.

Airlines, especially low-cost ones, have already announced their intention to return to Ukraine after the war, and carriers are working with the airport to identify new routes that will connect Kyiv with centers in Europe where large numbers of Ukrainian refugees are located.

Dubrevskyy noted that an increase in cargo flights related to the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine is expected. It also assumes pent-up tourism demand.

"We assume after the war a lot of people from the international community will come to Ukraine to see with their eyes our heroes and to shake their hands and to see the country of heroes who so bravely protected our European values," concluded the director general of Boryspil airport.