Volodymyr Zelensky wants passenger planes to fly in Ukraine again.
Few believe that the president's plan is possible during the war, but it is also true that his country has achieved, during the almost two years of Russian invasion, other feats that seemed impossible.
There were few who considered it feasible to circumvent the blockade of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea but, since last autumn, merchant traffic in Ukrainian ports has only increased.
For the president's office, the priority now is to reconnect Ukraine with the outside world by air.
Andrii Yermak, Zelensky's right-hand man, assured on December 1 that Borispil airport in kyiv would “soon” receive commercial flights again.
Yermak stated this in a meeting with ambassadors from allied countries that was held at the main Borispil terminal.
The diplomats were given a boarding pass as a souvenir.
“I trust that this symbolic boarding pass will be valid soon,” Yermak said, adding: “We can guarantee the security of the [airfield] facilities thanks to our Armed Forces and your countries.”
Zelensky also took a position on the matter on December 19: “The opening of Borispil will be a victory for Ukrainian air defense, it will show that Ukraine is winning.”
Emergency services training exercise at Borispil Airport in 2023.Press Office of Borispil International Airport
Unlike other Ukrainian airports, the one mentioned has not suffered damage.
A spokesperson for the facilities explains to EL PAÍS that they are ready to handle flights, but that she cannot comment on details of the plans of the president's office.
The aerodrome maintains its activity as a training center for ground personnel.
In July 2023, Borispil received a visit from the president of Ryanair, 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.
Officially, only four planes have left the country since then: two Turkish military planes that were in Ukraine when the war broke out;
a plane from the Hungarian airline Wizz Air that was also besieged and that took off in September 2022 from Lviv, in the west of the country, to cross into Polish territory in a few minutes;
and the last, last December, a Boeing 777 from the Ukrainian company Skyline Express.
The journey of this aircraft, between kyiv and Tarbes (in the south of France), without passengers, was considered proof that recovering the air connection is possible.
The plane, according to Ukrainian media, flew to the border with Romania with the transponder disconnected - the device that allows the radars in the control towers to locate the device at all times - and at an altitude of 3,650 meters.
Upon leaving Ukrainian airspace, the Boeing activated the transponder and climbed higher.
Despite the success of the Skyline Express flight, its operation to leave Ukraine is hardly valid as a reference for future commercial flights.
Deactivating the transponder is one of those maneuvers that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) strictly rules out in its manual for civil flights in or near conflict zones.
The military must always identify the location of the plane, according to the ICAO manual.
This document, updated in 2023, is one of the sector's regulatory
bibles
for operating in areas with armed activity.
“No airline could make a flight to an airport where the ICAO has not certified its operations,” explains Miguel Palacios, a retired Spanish pilot with decades of experience in national and international flights.
ICAO is an organization made up of 193 States 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 body that regulates the sector.
And it is largely on what IATA and the FAA approve regarding air safety in Ukraine that airlines agree to return to Borispil, as Rostislav Shurma, deputy director of Zelensky's office, admitted on January 18 at the Davos summit. .
Reference, Israel
Shurma noted that only 20% of the decisions required to open airspace depend on kyiv;
The rest is the responsibility of IATA, the FAA, international partners, independent regulators and insurers, Shurma listed.
Zelensky's representative stressed that they are working “intensely” with their allies to make this possible and specifically mentioned the cooperation they have established with the Israeli authorities.
Zelensky has reiterated that Israel is his role model for protecting cities and its airspace.
Ben Gurion Airport receives flights from international airlines daily despite the constant presence of missiles, those of Hezbollah and Hamas, but also those of their anti-aircraft batteries.
Kirilo Novikov, an air security expert, explained on January 24 on TSN that Israel has decades of experience in defense, especially thanks to its Iron Dome anti-aircraft system.
Novikov stated that the only option would be to establish an air corridor to the border with a level of anti-aircraft protection similar to that of Israel.
Armed Forces Lieutenant Oleg Zhdanov, also at TSN, saw this strategy as unrealistic.
Shurma indicated in Davos that the priority is to reopen Borispil, but they do not rule out having to opt for Lviv, 60 kilometers from the Polish border.
Borispil has better anti-aircraft defenses and is close to more people, but Russian missiles and drones are constantly arriving in kyiv.
In any case, any airport, being strategic infrastructure, is under threat of military action, as highlighted by the Alert System in Conflict Zones, a platform of the EU Agency for Aviation Safety that monitors the danger in territories. where armed activity occurs.
“Who would now get on a plane that could be shot down by a Russian missile?” asked Ukrainian Lieutenant Zhadnov, “or by one of our missiles if there is a massive attack and our defenses have to act?”
The ICAO manual focuses on “the most significant risk to civil aviation, surface-to-air missiles,” which include air defense systems.
MH-17, the misfortune that changed everything
It was precisely the downing of a passenger plane in Ukraine that caused a global change in civil aviation safety protocols.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 had taken off on July 17, 2014 from Amsterdam bound for Kuala Lumpur.
As it flew over Donetsk province, a surface-to-air missile fired by pro-Russian separatists shot it down, killing nearly 300 people.
Since that tragedy, new systems were created such as the EU warning map, the ICAO manuals or the Safer Skies initiative of the Government of Canada, an aviation safety monitoring program.
At the 2023 Safer Skies annual meeting last July, Ukrainian Civil Aviation Authority Head of Aviation Safety Volodymyr Hromov detailed the draconian measures formally required to reopen Ukrainian airspace: official reports and statements indicating the end of hostilities, end of martial law and cancellation of airspace restrictions.
Hromov added a caveat, which is what Zelensky's team could be working on: that national and international organizations, in addition to two independent analysis centers, demonstrate that there has been a reduction in the level of risk.
Hromov indicated that this would also require a period of between four to six months to confirm that the threat has decreased.
Ukrainian society is in need of hope, at a time when the war is controlled by Russia and the conflict has no signs of ending.
In October 2023, on 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, pointing their phones towards the sky: on the horizon you could see a passenger plane, flying over EU territory.
The couple explained that that image surprised them, they had forgotten that flying by plane is normal in any country in Europe, except in Ukraine.
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