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Traffic in Ukraine's airspace drops 32.4 pct in 2015

Xinhua, January 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Ukraine saw a total of 234,861 domestic, international and transit flights in its airspace in 2015, down 32.4 percent from a year ago, the country's aviation body said Friday.

Ukraerorukh, the nation's air traffic regulator, said in a statement that it has registered only 117,487 transit flights over Ukraine last year, 45.1 percent less than in 2014.

In the same time, traffic from domestic flights showed an 18-percent drop, while international flight movements fell 10.8 percent, the statement said.

Local experts said the drop in air traffic was mainly due to the closing of the airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine, which used to serve as a transit route between Europe and Asia, after the crash of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014.

In addition, many international air carriers have re-routed their flights after the MH17 crash over the conflict zone in Donetsk region to avoid the Ukrainian airspace for security reasons.

Besides, the Ukrainian aviation industry was severely affected by the suspension of air traffic with Russia.

In October 2015, Kiev barred all Russian airlines from flying to Ukraine in a move that prompted a retaliatory response from Moscow. Transit flights between the two former Soviet neighbors were also suspended. Endit