Boryspil International Airport

Boryspil International Airport (IATA: KBP, ICAO: UKBB) is an international airport located 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Boryspil, 29 km (18 mi) east of Kiev. It is Ukraine's largest airport, serving the major part of international flights of the country, and is one of three airports that serve Kiev, along with the smaller Zhulyany Airport and Gostomel Airport, a cargo facility used primarily by Antonov. The airport is a member of Airports Council International.

History

On 22 June 1959, the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR ordered establishment of regular civil air traffic to the then military airfield near Boryspil. On 7 July 1959 the new airport (named Kiev-Tsentralnyi) received its first scheduled flight. It was Aeroflot's Tupolev Tu-104 en route from Moscow, carrying 100 passengers and about 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg) of cargo aboard. The first routes served were Moscow–Kiev–Moscow and Leningrad–Kiev–Leningrad.

In November 1960, the first permanent air group consisting of Tu-104 and Antonov An-10 planes was assigned to the airport. Until then the airport had been served only by aircraft based in Moscow and other cities of the Soviet Union. A new passenger terminal of Boryspil airport was opened in 1965. Later that year an automatic landing assistance system was installed in the airport.

In 1963 the Ukrainian Territorial Administration of Civil Aviation formed its Boryspil subdivision consisting of the airport and its air group. The air group grew significantly in 1960-1970s. As of 1974 it was consisting of four fleets of turbofan aircraft (Tu-104, Tu-134, Tu-154 planes) and two fleets of turboprop aircraft (Ilyushin Il-18 planes).

Towards the final decades of the Cold War, the Soviet Air Force maintained a presence at the airport with 1 VTAP (1st Military Aviation Transportation Regiment) flying Ilyushin Il-76 cargo jets.

By 1980s, Boryspil airport had begun receiving limited international flights. The additional passenger services and customs/border control groups were established for that purpose. However, ordinary Soviet citizens were not allowed to depart abroad from Kiev, instead being restricted to flying only from Moscow airports. In the late 1980s, Mikhail Saakashvili, the President of modern Georgia, served his conscript service in the Soviet border guard's Boryspil Separate Group that was maintaining border control in the airport.

In 1993 the Ministry of Transportation of the newly-independent Ukraine reorganized the airport into the Boryspil State International Airport and created a local subdivision of Air Ukraine to serve it. The airport was opened for any passengers and flights. The number of air- and passenger traffic has been growing ever since.

Early in the 2000s, Boryspil became a hub airport serving not only destined but also transit flights of the foreign airlines. The strategy of the airport's development is stressing the hub role since domestic passenger demand is growing insufficiently compared to the possible transit traffic.

In 2001, a new runway was completed and the airport carried 1.5 million passengers. The airport has ILS CAT IIIa status.

In 2002 the airport was certified under the ISO 9001 quality management system.

It is one of Eastern Europe's largest airports with over six million passengers travelling in 2008. The Airport consistently accounted for between 60% and 70% of Ukraine’s air travel demand, and despite a drop of 13% in 2009 it handled 5.8 million passengers last year, more than it handled in 2007.

Development

Boryspil International Airport handles most of Ukraine's international traffic. Terminal B, with only eleven gates, two of which were air bridges, was not enough to handle all international flights from the airport. This was the reason for the expansion of that terminal, which started in 2005. The first-stage expansion of Terminal B was opened on 27 January 2006. In 2008, passport control within Terminal B Departures was moved further east (along with the entrance to the main duty-free shop so that it remains airside).

There are also plans to expand the airport further by building several new terminals. The government has been having meetings with the owners of land around the airport, trying to buy more land for airport expansion. The construction of Terminal D was approved on 28 July 2008 and is expected to be completed by 2011 at a cost of UAH 1,661 billion. The terminal will have a capacity of 1,500 passengers per hour and cover an area of 44.9 hectares. Platform M, which is connected to Terminal B and requires redevelopment, was to be reconstructed in 2009-2010. The reason for the delay in its the reconstruction was the fact that Terminal B needs to be fully operational first. When Terminal D opens (building began on 24 October 2008), platform M can be reconstructed without having a major impact on traffic.

A new runway will be constructed from 2012 to 2014. The construction of Terminal E is slated to be completed by 2012 (should funding and planning permission be in order) and it will have a capacity of 2,000 passengers per hour. As of November 1, 2010, Terminal F is in operation. By 2020, if all plans proceed, the airport should have a capacity of 18 million passengers per year.

New hotels will also open near Boryspil Airport. A Radisson hotel at Boryspil airport will open in late 2011.

On January 14, 2011, WizzAir announced that it will be moving its hub to Kiev's Zhulyany Airport.