Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants passenger planes to fly again in Ukraine. Few believe that the president's wartime plan is possible, but it is also true that in the nearly two years of the Russian invasion his country accomplished other feats that seemed impossible. There were few who considered it feasible to bypass the blockade of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, but since last fall, trade in Ukrainian ports has only increased. The presidential office's priority is now to reconnect Ukraine with the outside world by air.
Andrii Yermak, Zelensky's right-hand man, assured on December 1 that Kyiv's Borispil airport would resume commercial flights “soon.” Yermak stated this at a meeting with ambassadors of allied countries, which took place at the main terminal in Borispil. The diplomats received a boarding pass as a souvenir. “I am confident that this symbolic boarding pass will be valid soon,” Yermak said, adding: “We can guarantee the security of the facilities.” [del aeródromo] Thank you to our armed forces and your countries.” Zelensky also commented on this issue on December 19: “The opening of Borispil will be a victory for Ukrainian air defense, it will show that Ukraine is winning.”
Emergency medical services exercise at Borispil Airport in 2023. Borispil International Airport Press Office
Unlike other Ukrainian airports, the mentioned airport was not damaged. A spokeswoman for the facilities tells EL PAÍS that they are ready to handle flights, but she cannot comment on the details of the presidential office's plans. The airfield maintains its activity as a training center for ground personnel. In July 2023, Borispil received a visit from Ryanair President Michael O'Leary, in which the businessman promised to establish 75 routes between Ukraine and the rest of Europe “when the airspace is safe.”
Only four planes left the country
Ukraine closed its airspace in February 2022 when the Russian invasion began. Only four aircraft have officially left the country since then: two Turkish military aircraft that were in Ukraine when war broke out; a plane belonging to the Hungarian airline Wizz Air, also under siege, which took off from Lviv in the west of the country in September 2022 to reach Polish territory in a few minutes; and the most recent, last December, a Boeing 777 from the Ukrainian company Skyline Express. The flight of this aircraft between Kiev and Tarbes (in the south of France) without passengers was considered proof that it was possible to restore air connectivity. According to Ukrainian media, the plane flew with the transponder turned off – the device that allows the radars in the control towers to locate the device at any time – and at an altitude of 3,650 meters towards the border with Romania. When leaving Ukrainian airspace, the Boeing activated the transponder and climbed higher.
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Despite the success of the Skyline Express flight, its departure from Ukraine is hardly suitable as a reference for future commercial flights. Deactivating the transponder is one of the maneuvers that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) strictly excludes in its manual for civil flights in or near conflict areas. According to the ICAO manual, the military must always identify the location of the aircraft. This document, updated in 2023, is one of the sector's regulatory bibles for use in areas of armed activity. “No airline could operate a flight to an airport whose operations were not certified by ICAO,” explains Miguel Palacios, a retired Spanish pilot with decades of experience on domestic and international flights.
ICAO is an organization made up of 193 countries that coordinates their civil aviation operations. Palacios recalls that ICAO protocols are required by IATA, the international organization that brings together airlines, and by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US agency that regulates the sector. And airlines agree to return to Borispil largely because of what IATA and the FAA approve regarding aviation safety in Ukraine, as Rostislav Shurma, deputy director of Zelensky's office, admitted at the Davos summit on January 18.
Reference, Israel
Shurma noted that only 20% of decisions to open airspace depend on Kiev; The rest is the responsibility of IATA, the FAA, international partners, independent regulators and insurers, Shurma said. Zelensky's representative stressed that they are working “intensively” with their allies to make this possible, and specifically mentioned the cooperation they have established with the Israeli authorities.
Zelensky reiterated that Israel was his model for protecting cities and their airspace. Despite the constant presence of Hezbollah and Hamas rockets, as well as their anti-aircraft batteries, flights from international airlines are sent to Ben Gurion Airport every day. Kirilo Novikov, an aviation security expert, said on TSN on January 24 that Israel has decades of experience in defense, particularly thanks to its Iron Dome anti-aircraft system. Novikov explained that the only option would be to establish an air corridor to the border with anti-aircraft protection similar to Israel's. First Lieutenant of the Armed Forces Oleg Zhdanov, also with TSN, considered this strategy unrealistic.
Shurma pointed out in Davos that reopening Borispil was a priority, but did not rule out the possibility of choosing Lviv, which is 60 kilometers from the Polish border. Borispil has better anti-aircraft defenses and is near more people, but Russian missiles and drones are constantly arriving in Kiev. In any case, every airport, as a strategic infrastructure, is at risk of military attack, as shown by the Alert System in Conflict Zones, a platform of the EU Aviation Safety Agency that monitors the danger in areas where armed activity occurs.
“Who would now get on a plane that could be shot down by a Russian missile?” asked Ukrainian Lieutenant Shadnov, “or by one of our missiles if there was a massive attack and our defense had to intervene?” The ICAO Handbook focuses on “the greatest risk to civil aviation, surface-to-air missiles,” which include air defense systems.
MH-17, the disaster that changed everything
It was precisely the shooting down of a passenger plane in Ukraine that led to a global change in civil aviation safety protocols. The Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 took off from Amsterdam on July 17, 2014 towards Kuala Lumpur. As it flew over Donetsk province, it was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists, killing nearly 300 people.
Since this tragedy, new systems have been created such as the EU warning map, the ICAO manuals or the Canadian government's Safer Skies initiative, an aviation safety monitoring program. At the 2023 Safer Skies Annual Meeting last July, the head of the Aviation Safety Department of the Ukrainian Civil Aviation Authority, Volodymyr Hromov, explained the draconian measures officially required to reopen Ukrainian airspace: official reports and statements pointing to the end of hostilities, that End of martial law and the lifting of airspace restrictions. Hromov added a caveat that Zelensky's team could work on: that national and international organizations, as well as two independent analytical centers, prove that there has been a reduction in risk levels. Hromov noted that this would also require a period of four to six months to confirm that the threat has decreased.
Ukrainian society needs hope at a time when the war is controlled by Russia and there are no signs of the conflict ending. In October 2023, during a visit to the city of Uzghorod in the west of the country, adjacent to the border with Slovakia, the EL PAÍS envoy surprised a couple from Kiev who were sightseeing in the region by pointing their phones at the sky: On A passenger plane could be seen on the horizon flying over EU territory. The couple explained that this picture surprised them, they had forgotten that flying by plane is normal in every country in Europe except Ukraine.
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