SkyUp Airlines (PQ, Kyiv Boryspil) will suspend its flights to Sharjah, which operate from Zaporizhzhia, Lviv and Kharkiv, from February 1, according to an airline press release. This is due to the ban on flights over Iranian and Iraqi airspace introduced by the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine on January 9, 2020.
“We have to make the difficult decision for us to temporarily suspend regular flights to Sharjah from the regions of Ukraine," the airline's co-owner Alexander Alba said in the statement. "To make our flights safer, we changed these routes - we are currently flying through the territories of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and are also stopping for refuelling in Antalya. This increases flying time by at least three hours. It creates inconvenience for our passengers, and results in changes in the timetable of other flights at the Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Kharkiv airports."
The statement says that as soon as the ban on flights over Iraq and Iran is lifted, SkyUp will consider restarting these flights. The carrier's flights to Colombo International, which operate from 1x weekly from Kyiv Boryspil, will continue to operate with a tech-stop in Antalya on the return sector.
SkyUp operates a fleet of 12 aircraft, split between two B737-700s, six B737-800s, and four B737-900(ER)s, although two of the latter type have not yet been inducted into its active fleet as yet.
