Kherson Airport is seen by Ryanair “as a hub in the south of Ukraine,”

Kherson Airport is seen by Ryanair “as a hub in the south of Ukraine,” Yuri Husev, an advisor to the Infrastructure Minister, tells Ukrinform. At present, Kherson has only three scheduled flights: UIA to Kyiv Boryspil, Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, and Bravo to Lublin, Poland. But, after the loss of Crimea, Ukrainian tourism has boomed in southern Kherson, a region with 200 km of sandy beaches on the Black and Azov Seas. From a low base, Kherson had the fastest growth last year of Ukraine’s top 10 airports, 69%, to 105,900 passengers. Competing airports are far away: Odesa, 200 km to the west, and Zaporizhia 340 km to the northeast. Mykolaiv Airport, 75 km to the north, has only one seasonal flight, to Turkey. After launching 17 new Ukraine flights next month, from Kyiv and Lviv, Ryanair plans to add new Ukraine destinations in 2019.