The State Aviation Administration of Ukraine (SAAU) has awarded AtlasGlobal UA (Lviv), formerly known as Atlasjet UA (Lviv), scheduled traffic rights for the following routes: Lviv-Moscow, Lviv-Madrid Barajas, Odesa-Moscow, Kherson-Istanbul, Zaporizhzhia-Istanbul, and Kiev-Kutaisi.
The General Manager of the AtlasGlobal (Istanbul Airport) subsidiary, Sergei Podgorodetski, told the Interfax newswire that the carrier would this time round use Kyiv Igor Sikorsky instead of Kyiv Boryspil for its capital flights given that the former was a more cost-effective option than the latter.
As it stands, AtlasGlobal UA's plans to launch operations on June 18 with flights between Kiev and Lvov will likely be delayed. Podgorodetski said the start-up is currently awaiting further deliberations before fixing a firm launch date.
Last week, the SAAU published an amended rule №686 of October 24, 2014 which governs the issuance and revocation of air traffic rights. In its original form, the regulation had been subject to protracted court wranglings with carriers such as AtlasGlobal UA arguing it favoured local operator, Ukraine International Airlines (PS, Kyiv Boryspil), above all others.
Under the new rule, the SAAU will determine which airline is eligible for which route according to the following criteria: whether a carrier has previously been allowed to service the route it is applying for; revenue contributed to the State through taxation as measured over a Financial Year and according to the number of aircraft in fleet; the number of accidents per 1 million flights in the last twelve months; the frequency and regularity of flights operated over the last six months.
The implementation of controversial rules requiring native Ukrainians to own more than 50% of the share capital of an airline and those requiring start-ups to operate domestic flights for 12 months before venturing abroad, has been shelved for one year.
