Zurich/Kiev, Dec. 10, 2010 – Swissport Ukraine is pleased to announce the launch of its operations in Kharkov (also known as Charkiv or Kharkiv), Ukraine's second largest city with a population of 1,5 m citizens. The growth of Swissport Ukraine into the east of the country is a first step to expand business to other airports and services within the Ukraine in light of the EURO 2012 and economy picking up.
Kharkov is a key scientific, industrial and transport center of the country and the former capital of Ukraine. It’s a fast growing city very strongly connected to other regions of the country and Russia, but also having growing business with European countries.
With the awarding of EURO 2012 to Poland and Ukraine, Kharkov International Airport has opened on Dec. 1 a modern, 20.000 square meters terminal with a capacity of 2 million passengers per year and 1,600 passengers per hour. The modern terminal has 18 check-in desks, 6 gates and state of the art infrastructure. The airport is located in the city boundaries; it’s equipped with numerous shops, cafes and offers comfortable parking.
The new terminal is built not only to cater for local passengers, but also in order to gain traffic from adjacent areas, including Russia (Belgorod & Kursk region). Currently, the airport offers connections to 16 cities operated by 11 airlines; plans for 2011 are to add several new customers and destinations.
Swissport Ukraine can now offer, besides its full handling services in Kiev, a range of passenger and airside services to the growing list of airlines operating from Kharkov International Airport.
Vladimir Semenchenko, general manager of Swissport Ukraine is very proud and comments: “On December 1st, our first flight (Pegasus Airlines to Istanbul) was handled successfully. The project to enter into Kharkov was launched within record-breaking time of three weeks and implemented very professionally. For this I would like to thank Kharkov airport management and the entire Swissport implementation team. I warmly welcome our new customers as well as our new Kharkov colleagues and wish them the best of luck.”