Ukraine's Air Ocean to launch with An-148s

Ukraine seizes two Russian-owned An-148s worth €10mn

At the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, a court in Ukraine has seized two An-148-100 aircraft belonging to an undisclosed Russian joint-stock company, after that company allegedly used a Cypriot offshore entity to circumvent sanctions.

The Prosecutor General’s Office said on its Telegram channel on January 23 that “personal special economic and other sanctions were applied to the company in question” according to directives made by Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council. The cost of the planes is about EUR10 million euros (USD10.85 million), it added.

According to an investigation the prosecutor’s office had conducted, in 2021 the sanctioned firm used the Cypriot offshore company to enter into a lease agreement with a Ukrainian company for the two Antonov regional jets. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 last year, the lease contracts were terminated.

However, the Antonov Design Bureau twinjets were about to be exported from the territory of Ukraine and delivered to Russia, according to the statement.

“Under the procedural guidance of the Prosecutor General’s Office, a pre-trial...

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Wizz Air to extract four aircraft grounded in Ukraine

Wizz Air (W6, Budapest) plans to extract as soon as possible four of its A320-200s trapped in Ukraine following the closure of the country's airspace to all civilian flights following the Russian invasion.

"We will be evacuating, at the earliest opportunity, the four aircraft (three in Kyiv and one in Lviv) we have based on the ground,” a Wizz Air spokesperson confirmed to ch-aviation.

According to Flightradar24 ADS-B data, three Wizz Air A320-200s are stuck at Kyiv Igor Sikorsky. They are HA-LWY (msn 6058) which had arrived on February 23 from Milan Malpensa (Italy); HA-LPJ (msn 3127) from Hamburg Helmut Schmidt (Germany); and HA-LPM (msn 3177) from Budapest (Hungary). Another A320-200, HA-LWS (msn 5608), is grounded at Lviv.

“The safety and security of our passengers and crew remain our number one priority and we hope normality will return to Ukraine soon," Wizz Air said in a statement.

Budget carriers Wizz Air and Ryanair and several other airlines have announced the temporary suspension of all...