UIA is not a new player on the Georgian market. Now, after a long pause due to the quarantine after the resumption of flights, we seem to get to know each other again. After all, a lot has changed in our operating model, in the fleet, and in routes.
In 2014, UIA faced the problem of stabilizing its business amid a deep political and economic crisis, devaluation of the national currency and a sharp drop in effective demand. For the first time in its history, UIA had to take drastic measures in case of unforeseen circumstances and optimize its staff, fleet and route network. At the beginning of 2018, UIA received the first Boeing 777-200ER aircraft in Ukraine, which received the registration number UR-GOA. In total, in 2018, the UIA fleet was replenished with three aircrafts of this type with a modern cabin in the third classes. It has significantly improved the quality of long-haul flights, especially for business class passengers. Moreover, on November 16, 2018, the airline carried 50 million passengers. It was Mikhail Osipchuk, who flew from Kyiv to Paris on flight PS127.
At the end of 2019, UIA top management initiated optimization of the airline's route network in order to reduce unnecessary costs and bring the company to the breakeven point in 2020 with the expectation of further stable development. In particular, unprofitable flights to Almaty, Beijing and Bangkok were canceled due to unjustified flight costs due to the need to operate flights over the territories of the Russian Federation. From 2014 to 2019, due to unequal business conditions, the airline lost about $ 216 million. Due to measures to revise the flight program, UIA received unplanned revenue of $ 11 million in early 2020.
In the spring 2020, a full lockdown was introduced to stop the coronavirus infection COVID-19. During this period, regular flights within Ukraine and abroad were suspended, so the management of UIA implemented an anti-crisis program to restructure costs, optimize personnel and minimize airlines' costs. This has cut UIA's mandatory monthly operating costs by almost three times, while freeing about 1,000 people.
Further, in the spring of the same year, a full lockdown was introduced to stop the coronavirus infection COVID-19. During this period, regular flights within Ukraine and abroad were suspended, so the management of UIA implemented an anti-crisis program to restructure costs, optimize personnel and minimize airlines' costs. This has cut UIA's mandatory monthly operating costs by almost three times. UIA also performed evacuation flights to / from New York, London, Brussels, Nice and many more cities. In addition, having analyzed the needs of passengers returning to Ukraine, UIA introduced additional flights from Cairo, Paris, Barcelona and Athens. In addition to special flights, UIA was actively involved in cargo transportation. We transported humanitarian, medical and special cargo, including in the passenger compartment, which gave us valuable experience in this aspect.
During the coronavirus crisis of 2020, UIA managed to resist the lack of any support from the state solely through management decisions: redistribution of financial pressure on costs, staff reduction, transfer of a significant part of the team to remote work, and e.t. These strategic steps have provided UIA with an opportunity to compete in the aviation market.
It should be only remember how the borders of most countries around the world were closed in a couple of days. In turn, Georgia stopped regular flights in March 2020, in fact, like most states. However, in August 2020, the Georgian authorities allowed Air France to resume flights to Tbilisi from Paris, and Lufthansa began flights from Munich. A little later, this list was expanded with directions from Tbilisi to Riga, Warsaw, Doha, Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin and Bergamo. Meanwhile, at UIA we were looking forward to the opening of the borders with Georgia, since Tbilisi for us is a strategic direction in which we see great potential. UIA offers its citizens and guests of Georgia both convenient flights to Europe via the Boryspil air hub and direct flights to Kyiv.
In 2019, we transported about 210 thousand passengers in this direction. Today, we also see great potential in launching Kyiv-Tbilisi-Kyiv flights and plan to systematically increase our presence in Georgia.
As of January 1, 2021, UIA's fleet consisted of 35 modern airliners. Immediately after the resumption of flights, the airline operated 14 aircraft, gradually increasing their number to 28 aircraft.
Now UIA operates flights from Tbilisi to Kyiv on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The morning flights from Georgia departure at 6:15 a.m. and arrive to Kyiv airport at 8:15 a.m. Such a schedule allows connecting flights from Tbilisi with a dozen international and domestic routes. The daytime flight departing at 14:35 is more focused on passengers who fly only to Kyiv.
Planning our strategy to resume flights in 2020, we focused on operating point-to-point flights, which are capable of demonstrating high load without maintaining transit. After the normalization of traffic in late 2020 and early 2021, we began a gradual restoration of our international network and convenient connections. This transportation model allows us to maintain our main advantage - transit potential. Now we have visible results. We have restored most of the international destinations, the states of which can receive passengers from other countries.
In March 2021, after a long pause, we returned flights to our beloved Tbilisi with a regular program. We also see potential in operating flights between Kyiv and Batumi. In particular, UIA did not operate flights to Batumi in 2016, 2018 and 2019, since this direction was not included in the network model in the context of a limited fleet of aircraft.
Batumi is a summer destination that is open to Ukrainian tourists. It can be in demand both for our tourists and, we hope, for citizens and guests of Batumi. This “window of opportunity” appeared for UIA precisely in connection with the pandemic, when tourism destinations are limited. In addition, we are confident in the success of this case.
The schedule of international and domestic flights of UIA is designed in such a way as providing passengers from Tbilisi with convenient connections through the international airport "Boryspil".
At the same time, we are also focused not only on transit passengers, but also on point-to-point travelers. In particular, we are actively developing the internal network of routes in Ukraine together with partners. With a transfer in Kyiv about two hours, a passenger from Tbilisi can fly to Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Domestic flights are available on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. However, there is not only in Ukraine an opportunity to fly away. For example, Georgian citizens can travel from Tbilisi to Vilnius, Geneva, Munich and Prague on Mondays. With a two-hour transfer in Boryspil airport, you can fly to Milan, Paris, Amsterdam and Larnaca on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
