While diplomats are still working through the final details of a peace agreement, Europe’s budget airline giants are already looking at Ukraine with the kind of intensity we haven’t seen since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
Wizz Air, Ryanair, and easyJet (which has never even flown to Ukraine before) have made their stance clear. As soon as the airspace reopens, they are ready to launch. Their CEOs are remarkably open about the opportunity they see ahead, predicting a massive travel boom driven by returning refugees, reconstruction teams, families visiting from abroad, and people simply wanting to see the country for themselves.
“When the Berlin Wall fell, millions came just to see history,” Wizz Air CEO József Váradi explained to investors last week. “Ukraine will be the same. People will want to witness what happened here with their own eyes.”
Dark Tourism Battle Plans Are Already Drawn
Wizz Air is taking the most aggressive approach. They have pledged to station 15 aircraft in Ukraine within two years of peace, with plans to scale that up to 50 aircraft within seven years. Before the conflict in 2022, Wizz was already the country’s third-largest carrier, and they clearly intend to make Kyiv a major eastern hub alongside their operations in Poland and Hungary.
Ryanair, never one to miss a growth opportunity, has already sent senior teams to inspect airports in Kyiv, Lviv, and Odesa. CEO Eddie Wilson says the airline aims to carry four million passengers a year to and from Ukraine. That is nearly triple their pre-war volume. Wilson stated they would have tickets on sale within two weeks of getting the all clear, noting that the only real question remaining is when it will actually be safe to fly.
easyJet is the newcomer here and is taking a slightly more cautious route. CEO Kenton Jarvis described Ukraine as potentially the largest single European project they have ever undertaken. While they don’t plan to base aircraft locally in the short term, Jarvis expects massive demand from Ukrainians abroad who will want to come home the moment it is safe, along with curious visitors from across the continent.
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Dark Tourism or Reconstruction Tourism?
There is also the reality of what the industry calls “dark tourism.” Insiders are candid about the fact that the first wave of leisure travelers will likely include people drawn to war-related sites, such as the battered cities in the east or symbolic locations in Kyiv.
But airline executives are looking beyond that to more conventional traffic. They are preparing for millions of displaced families returning home, construction and humanitarian workers arriving to help, and business travelers supporting the rebuild. When you add the diaspora communities in places like Poland, Germany, Canada, and the UK coming to visit relatives, the expectation is that passenger numbers could quickly surpass pre-war levels.
Airports Are Getting Ready Too
The airports are preparing for this, too. Ukraine’s main international gateways, including Kyiv Boryspil and Lviv, have spent the war years under threat but have suffered surprisingly limited physical damage to their runways and terminals. Lviv has been used intermittently for humanitarian and diplomatic flights and could be the first to reopen commercially. Government officials have quietly suggested that a phased reopening could begin within 30 to 90 days of a durable ceasefire, likely starting in the west and gradually expanding eastward.
A High-stakes Bet
This is not without risk, of course. Insurance costs for flying near a recent war zone will be incredibly high at first. Rebuilding infrastructure takes time, and consumer confidence does not return overnight.
Yet the potential upside is enormous. Before the war, ticket prices on routes like London to Kyiv were already among the lowest in Europe. With three major low-cost airlines now competing for passengers, fares could drop even further, potentially turning Ukraine into one of the continent’s most connected destinations. It feels like things could change almost overnight.
One Ryanair route planner put it bluntly, noting that they aren’t waiting for Ukraine to be fully rebuilt. They just need it to be “flyable.”
For the millions of Ukrainians currently abroad, and for travelers watching history happen in real time, the clock is already ticking. The countdown to that first post-war Ryanair or Wizz Air landing has basically begun.