Ukraine International Airlines (PS, Kyiv Boryspil) has announced a new network strategy dubbed the "breakeven flight programme", wherein it will cut a significant number of flights, including long-haul services to Beijing Capital.

The Ukrainian flag carrier said in a press release that all changes will go into force on November 16, 2019.

"Ukraine International optimises the hub at Kyiv Boryspil International Airport with due regard to such factors as demand fluctuations, connecting traffic dynamics, Ukraine's economic forecast, and the inability to use the Russian airspace. The flight program is being axed is due to the need to optimise the airline’s costs and bring it back to the profit zone," the airline said.

As a part of the new strategy, the carrier will suspend its 5x weekly services to Beijing "until the government of Ukraine comes up with an efficient solution for ensuing arm’s length terms for Ukrainian carriers that are obliged to by-pass the airspace of the Russian Federation when operating eastbound flights". UIA, just like all other Ukrainian airlines, is banned from overflying Russia and has to fly longer southern routes to China. As a result, the carrier's flights to Beijing last around 9.5 hours, comparable with services from London Heathrow or Paris CDG, airports located around 2,000 kilometres further from China than Kyiv.

UIA previously suspended services to Astana Nursultan Nazarbayev and Almaty International citing their unprofitability when flown around Russia.

The airline will add a third weekly flight to Toronto Pearson and change the schedule of its flights to New York JFK while keeping them as 5x weekly.

Regarding its short- and medium-haul network, UIA will suspend services to Amman Queen Alia (currently 3x weekly), Minsk National (10x weekly), and Riga (previously 2x daily, now 3x weekly). The airline will maintain services to London Gatwick and Vilnius as 2x daily, while most of the other European routes will be served daily.

The Ukrainian airline will also reschedule its flights so that Western European flights will depart from Kyiv between 0930L and 1030L, arriving back between 1730L and 1830L. In turn, departures to non-European destinations will be rescheduled to between 2000L and 2100L, and arrivals back to Kyiv to between 0730L and 0845L.

UIA lost almost UAH2.7 billion hryvnias (USD107 million) in 2018. The carrier recently said it has lost around UAH5.4 billion hryvnias (USD215 million) since 2015 due to the ban on Russian overflights and the closure of airspace over eastern Ukraine (Donbas) alone.