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Exclusive: Both Ryanair and Wizz Air insist they will be first back when the fighting stops, with easyJet planning flights from Gatwick to Kyiv
Simon CalderTravel Correspondent Thursday 27 November 2025 10:46 GMTComments
open image in galleryWaiting for peace: Zhuliany airport close to central Kyiv, pictured before the Russian invasion (Simon Calder )
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As Ukraine and Russia inch towards a possible settlement, Europe’s big three budget airlines have been setting out their plans for post-ceasefire flying.
Passenger aviation ended on the day Russia invaded on 24 February 2022. European safety authorities warn: “The presence and possible use of a wide range of ground and airborne warfare systems poses a high risk for civil flights operating at all altitudes and flight levels.”
Currently thousands of civilians travel in and out of Ukraine every day, using buses and trains from neighbouring countries.
Were a peace deal to be agreed, the ban on flying to, from or over Ukraine could be lifted soon afterwards.
But the national airline, Ukraine International, is now moribund. The website, flyuia.com, is not working. The carrier’s last statement, in 2023, said: “The suspension of regular and charter flights to and from Ukraine will continue until martial law in Ukraine is lifted, and Ukrainian airspace is reopened.”
Kenton Jarvis, chief executive of easyJet, told The Independent: “There’s probably no functioning ‘flag carrier’ left now.”
Along with rivals at Ryanair and Wizz Air, his airline is assessing opportunities once the skies are open.
He said: “At some stage, hopefully sooner rather than later for humanitarian reasons, the airspace opens and airports are re-established. I’d expect Ryanair and Wizz to base aircraft there, taking aircraft out of other markets.
“Ukraine will be Europe’s largest building project, so even if we don’t base there, it becomes an interesting destination.
“Kiev, Lviv, Odesa – I can see those opening. Routes from Gatwick initially, then Liverpool, Belfast, places feeding building support and trade.
“And of course Ryanair and Wizz will chase VFR [visiting friends and relatives] traffic that used to exist.”
open image in galleryFighting back: Tourism will return to Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities once the guns fall silent (Simon Calder)Wizz Air’s UK managing director, Yvonne Moynihan, told The Independent: “We see ourselves as a home-town carrier in Ukraine. We were the largest foreign operator before the war.
“We already have a commercial plan and have rehearsed what will happen when the airspace reopens, and we have a two-phase plan ready to go.”
Prior to the war, Wizz Air flew to and from Zhuliany airport, close to the centre of Kyiv. Most other airlines used Boryspil airport, 18 miles east.
Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, visited Kyiv for talks on post-war flying in September 2023.
Earlier this year he told The Independent: “We want to be the first airline back into Ukraine, and we have a plan to run about 25 routes to and from Kyiv and Lviv within six weeks of the sky reopening. We need the six weeks just to fill those flights.
“We have about 14 million Ukrainians dispersed all over Europe. They haven’t seen their friends and families for three years because of this illegal invasion by Russia.”
In addition, a surge in tourism is expected. Some British tourists are visiting, crossing from Poland, Romania or Moldova to Lviv or Odesa, but the Foreign Office warns against travel to Ukraine.
Before the Russian invasion, Ryanair had planned to expand its Ukrainian operations starting in March 2022, including the first flights from London Stansted to Odesa on the Black Sea.
At present the EU Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) warns: “Airspace and critical infrastructure, including airports, are exposed to military activities which result in safety risks for civil aircraft. In particular, there is a risk of both intentional targeting and misidentification of civil aircraft.”
Easa says it will “continue to closely monitor the situation, with a view to assess whether there is an increase or decrease of the risk due to the evolution of the threat and risk situation”.
In 2014, 298 passengers and crew were killed when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by Russian-backed rebels using a surface-to-air missile supplied by Moscow.
A month before the Russian invasion, a Ukraine International flight from Tehran to Kyiv was shot down in error by Iranian forces shortly after take-off. All 176 passengers and crew died.
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