Ukraine’s Dniproavia to Launch Direct Tbilisi-Odessa Flights
KYIV - Ukrainian airline Dniproavia will begin regular direct flights between the Georgian capital Tbilisi and Ukraine’s principal Black Sea port city Odessa on 6 October, the airline announced late last week.
According to Dniporavia, the autumn and winter schedule will include a two and a half hour weekly flight carried out every Thursday, serviced by a Brazilian-made twin-engine Embraer-145 jet.
The move to offer direct flights between the two cities comes at a time when Georgia’s former President, now Governor of Odessa, Mikheil Saakashvili, has frequently stated that he wanted to increase the number of transportation links between Odessa to Georgia.
In addition to direct flights, Saakashvili has said he wants to see the creation of a regular, year-round passenger ferry service that travels across the Black Sea from Odessa to Georgia’s ports, Batumi and Poti.
A major cultural center and an ethnically diverse city with close links to Europe, Odessa is Ukraine’s most important seaport and transportation hub.
Odessa’s port and industrial enterprises are vital to Ukraine’s economy as the country’s strategically important oil and chemical processing facilities are located in the city and connected to European networks by pipelines.
Founded in 1996 by Ukrainian billionaire Igor Kolomoisky’s PrivatGroup, Dniporavia is headquartered in Ukraine’s fourth largest city, Dnipro (formerly Dnepropetrovsk).
Dniproavia currently serves domestic routes within Ukraine as well as international services to Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Israel and Turkey. The airline already offers a regular service to Batumi.
Dnipro, of 1.1 million people, is an economic and political power base in Ukraine. The city is the hometown of many of the country’s key political and religious figures of the last century, including former President Leonid Kuchma, as well as ex-prime ministers Yulia Tymoshenko and Pavel Lazarenko.
The city is also home to Yuzhmash, one of the world’s largest ballistic missile design bureaus and manufacturers.
By Nicholas Waller