SkyUp Airlines LLC is a

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

and

low-cost airline A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as '' no-frills'', ''budget'' or '' discount carrier'' or ''airline'', and abbreviated as ''LCC'') is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing op ...

headquartered in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

, which began its operation in May 2018. During 2021, the airline carried 2,546,899 passengers, performed 15,962 flights, and transported 786.5 tons of cargo. Its staff is 1172 employees.

History

In 2016, SkyUp became a registered company in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. On 14 December 2017, Minister of Infrastructure

Volodymyr Omelyan Volodymyr Volodymyrovych Omelyan ( uk, Володимир Володимирович Омелян) (January 30, 1979 in Lviv) is a Ukrainian diplomat and politician. He is a former Ukraine's infrastructure minister in the government of Volodymy ...

announced the launch of a new national private air carrier named SkyUp Airlines. The main shareholders of the company were ACS-Ukraine Ltd, Yuri Alba and Tatyana Alba, who also owned the tour operator Join UP!, which was expected to cooperate with the airline to provide charter flights for holiday packages. Plans for the first year included concentrating on international charter flights to popular summer destinations, as well as scheduled flights within Ukraine and to several international destinations. Tickets sales were set to begin in April 2018. SkyUp also intends to cooperate with

Ukraine International Airlines Ukraine International Airlines PJSC, often shortened to UIA ( uk, Авіакомпанія Міжнародні Авіалінії України, Aviakompaniya Mizhnarodni Avialiniyi Ukrayiny, ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of ...

. The company started operations on 21 May 2018 with a flight from Kyiv-Zhuliany to

Sharm El Sheikh Sharm El Sheikh ( ar, شرم الشيخ, ), commonly abbreviated to Sharm, is an Egyptian city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 53,670 ...

. In March 2018, SkyUp Airlines and

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

finalised a firm order for the purchase of two Boeing 737 8 MAX and three

Boeing 737 MAX 10 The Boeing 737 MAX is the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, a narrow-body airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), a division of American company Boeing. It succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) and competes with t ...

due to be delivered in 2023. Additionally the airline has the option to purchase another five aircraft. At its launch the airline intended to operate charter flights from both Kyiv-Boryspil and Kyiv-Zhuliany, as well as

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

and other cities in Ukraine to a total of sixteen destinations:

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

Antalya Antalya () is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, fifth-most populous city in Turkey as well as the capital of Antalya Province. Located on Anatolia's southwest coast bordered by the Taurus Mountains, Antalya is the largest Turkish cit ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Bodrum Bodrum () is a port city in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gökova. Its population was 35,795 at the 2012 census, with a total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district's borders. Known in ancient t ...

Burgas Burgas ( bg, Бургас, ), sometimes transliterated as ''Bourgas'', is the second largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast in the region of Northern Thrace and the fourth-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna, with a popu ...

Dalaman Dalaman is a district, as well as the central town of that district, situated on the southwestern coast of Turkey, in the Muğla Province. Dalaman Stream (''Dalaman çayı'') forms much of the western border of the district, where its neighbor ...

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

Hurghada Hurghada (; ar, الغردقة ', ) is a city in the Red Sea Governorate of Egypt. It is one of the country's main tourist centres located on the Red Sea coast. Overview Hurghada was founded in the early 20th century. For many decades it wa ...

Larnaca Larnaca ( el, Λάρνακα ; tr, Larnaka) is a city on the south east coast of Cyprus and the capital of the district of the same name. It is the third-largest city in the country, after Nicosia and Limassol, with a metro population of 144 ...

Palma de Mallorca Palma (; ; also known as ''Palma de Mallorca'', officially between 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

Rimini Rimini ( , ; rgn, Rémin; la, Ariminum) is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It sprawls along the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia (the ancient ''Ariminu ...

Tenerife Tenerife (; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands. It is home to 43% of the total population of the archipelago. With a land area of and a population of 978,100 inhabitants as of Janu ...

Tivat Tivat (, ) is a coastal town in southwest Montenegro, located in the Bay of Kotor. , its population was 9,367. Tivat is the centre of Tivat Municipality, which is the smallest municipality by area in Montenegro. Name In Serbian and Montenegrin l ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

and

Varna Varna may refer to: Places Europe *Varna, Bulgaria, a city in Bulgaria **Varna Province **Varna Municipality ** Gulf of Varna **Lake Varna **Varna Necropolis *Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy *Varniai, a city in Lithuania * Varna (Šaba ...

. Following the launch of the charter operations, the airline planned to commence domestic services from Odessa to Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv in late May or early June 2018. The airline also intended to operate international services from Kyiv to

and

. In February 2019, the airline announced it would be moving its main base from the Zhuliany to Boryspil from the beginning of the summer schedule. The airline said that the decision to change the home airport was made due to restrictions on the operation of aircraft at Zhuliany Airport. Also in 2019 SkyUp was hit by court attack with controversial guilty verdicts resulted in their license being suspended. However, journalists revealed that the woman, who allegedly appealed to the court, said she had never been SkyUp’s client and did not appeal to the court. Prime Minister of Ukraine, as well as Minister of Infrastructure called the court attack suspicious. Later guilty verdicts and license suspension were recalled, while the judge, responsible for the illegal verdict, was dismissed. On 20 February 2020, one of the airline's planes was chartered by the

Ukrainian government The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine ( uk, Кабінет Міністрів України, translit=Kabinet Ministriv Ukrainy; shortened to CabMin), commonly referred to as the Government of Ukraine ( uk, Уряд України, ''Uriad Ukrai ...

to evacuate citizens from

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, which was back then not a

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

. In 2021 SkyUp became the first Ukrainian airline to launch direct flights from Saudi Arabia to Ukraine. In October 2021, a new uniform for flight attendants was introduced: high-heeled shoes were replaced by sneakers, and trouser suits instead of skirts. SkyUp Airlines won the «Heart of Airspace» nomination according to the «Ukraine Tourism Awards 2021». On 24 February 2022, coinciding with the closure of Ukrainian airspace to civil aviation traffic, SkyUp canceled all flights through 6 March 2022. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the airline has been conducting evacuation and humanitarian flights, as well as providing wet leasing for its fleet.

Destinations

As of October 2021, SkyUp serves 64 scheduled year-round and seasonal destinations from airports in Ukraine, some of which are operated as charters. The airline mainly serves routes throughout Europe and the Middle East.skyup.aero - All flights
retrieved 10 October 2020

Fleet

As of December 2021, SkyUp Airlines operates the following aircraft:

In Culture

The aircraft and uniform of SkyUp flight attendants appear in

Max Barskih Mykola Mykolaiovych Bortnyk ( uk, Микола Миколайович Бортник, born 8 March 1990), better known by his stage name Max Barskih ( uk, Макс Барських) and alter-ego Mickolai, is a Ukrainian singer and songwriter. ...

’s video Just Fly.

References

External links