Monitoring Desk: City of Lviv in Western Ukraine attracted 2 million visitors in 2018 while its airport registered 48 percent increase in passengers.
On the other hand, Donetsk International Airport in Eastern Ukraine lies in ruins as monument of destruction, reports Business Ukraine.
Business Ukraine reports that Lviv International Airport registered a 48% year-on-year increase in passenger numbers with peak traffic registered during December 2018.
According to available data, 129,000 passengers travelled through Lviv Airport during December 2018 through traffic of 1,282 flights during December 2018.
Good performance of aviation industry indicates economic recovery of Ukraine and growing international appeal as a tourism and investment destination.
Business Ukraine writes that proximity of Lviv to European Union destinations like Berlin, Prague and Vienna is making this airport as best choice to European travelers to use as tourism gateway and city of Lviv attracted two million visitors in 2018.
Donetsk Airport in Shamble
Business Ukraine reports that Lviv International airport has become one of the brighter aspects of Ukraine’s European integration efforts while Donetsk International Airport in Eastern Ukraine lies in ruins and has become a symbol of the undeclared war between Russia and Ukraine.
It is pertinent to mention that Russian hybrid forces seized Donetsk International Airport in late spring 2014 as part of the Kremlin-led takeover of the Donbas region that followed Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. Ukrainian troops were initially able to regain control of the airport, but it soon became a battleground. No commercial flights have landed in Donetsk since 26 May 2014 when large-scale military hostilities first erupted.
“It remains a wasteland today, stranded on the frontlines of a simmering conflict with no end in sight. The grim fate of Donetsk International Airport mirrors the tragedy of the wider Donbas region. Meanwhile, booming Lviv airport offers a hint of the benefits Donetsk might also have enjoyed if the city had been able to embrace Ukraine’s European choice in 2014 rather than becoming a focal point of Russian aggression”, reports Business Ukraine.
