Ukraine is preparing its argument concerning the inadvisability of issuing recommendations from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to limit the flights of European airlines over the eastern part of Ukraine, Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan told a briefing on Monday, 25 September.
"I am grateful to my colleagues from the European Union, who are in talks with us instead of putting us before the fact. I had a conversation on this subject with the European Commissioner for Mobility and Transport Violeta Bulc. We have agreed that we will present all the arguments of the Ukrainian side this week," the minister said said.
According to him, the threat of banning such flights is serious enough.
"The EASA decision will be advisory in nature, but we do realise that many companies will heed to it," said Omelyan and added that the Ukrainian side does not understand the reasons for strengthening security measures.
"Our European partners say that their security requirements have risen, and this has led to the emergence of such a draft newsletter. I do hope that the arguments provided by the Ukrainian side will be sufficient to ensure that such a document is not issued," Omelyan concluded.
Earlier, EASA stated plans to ban the European airlines in airports Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhya in view of because of their proximity to the ATO zone.
Flights over Donbas have been banned since mid-2014, when a Russian Buk anti-aircraft missile system shot down a passenger flight by Malaysia Airlines' MH17 Boeing 777 from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur, killing 298 innocent people.