Private business is able to quickly revive an abandoned enterprise. Here is an example – International Airport “Kyiv” – Denys Kostrzhevskyi

The history of Kyiv’s airport is a vivid example of the successful implementation of public-private partnership. And it is one of the few. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kyiv International Airport, Denys Kostrzhevskyi, shares more about this in an article for “Ukrainska pravda”.

According to him, since the first days of Ukraine’s independence, Kyiv Airport was in a regrettable condition.

“There was no sign of stopping millions of subsidies from the capital’s budget, credit obligations reached 22 million hryvnias.” He continued, “the old passenger terminal, which was built in the middle of the last century, fell into disrepair, the technical capabilities of the short runway did not allow serving modern aircraft. Practically, the airport stopped working.”

He believes the situation was saved by the law of 2010, which regulated the public-private partnership, and by the arrival of a strategic investor to the airport – “Master-Avia” LLC.

“Not only did the company pay off all the debts of the utility company, but it also in record time of just 10 months built a new terminal “A” for international flights with a capacity of 520 passengers per hour on the site of the unfinished airport,” he explained. “The new terminal complex hospitably served more than 100,000 guests of Euro-2012 and immediately became a business card of the capital.”

So, “Master-Avia” LLC continued to develop Kyiv airport even after Euro-2012. Over the past 13 years, total investments in the development of the airport infrastructure have reached over UAH 4 billion.

“All this led to other benefits for the country: about 10,000 new jobs in the aviation and related service industries, as well as more than half a billion hryvnias in taxes paid by the company. “Before the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, Kyiv Airport was one of the largest taxpayers among the capital’s municipal enterprises” Kostrzhevskyi stated.

Summarising, Denys Kostrzhevskyi noted that despite the war and the uncertainty associated with it, “Master-Avia” LLC is determined to implement everything they had planned, and continues to develop the project for reconstructing of Kyiv International Airport.