Irish low-cost airline Ryanair has cancelled its planned entry into Ukraine following Kyiv airport's "failure to honour a growth agreement" reached earlier with the country's infrastructure ministry, the carrier said in a statement on July 10.

The airport instead chose to "protect" high fare airlines - including Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) controlled by oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky - and "deprive Ukrainian consumers/visitors access to Europe’s lowest air fares and widest route network", Ryanair added.

This left the airline with no choice but to cancel four new Kyiv routes and seven new Lviv routes, according to the statement.

"We regret that Kyiv airport has demonstrated that Ukraine is not yet a sufficiently mature or reliable business location to invest valuable Ryanair aircraft capacity," said Ryanair’s chief commercial officer David O’Brien. "Kyiv airport’s failure to honour commitments will result in the loss of over 500,000 customers and 400 airport jobs in the first year alone, which would have provided a significant boost to the Ukrainian economy."

The carrier also regrets that Lviv airport "has fallen victim" to Kyiv airport's decision, O’Brien added.

The same day, Kyiv airport director Pavlo Riabikin told journalists that Ryanair had set conditions for its flights that are not in line with Ukrainian legislation. "First: they demand that disputable issues were solved in London arbitration applying English law," Interfax news agency quoted Riabkin as saying. "We insist that they are to be settled in Ukrainian courts."

He added that the carrier also demanded air navigation services free of charge, check in, taxi parking lots, space for advertisement, ticket sale offices, a 60-day crediting period secured by the airport, payment of 35% of profit from duty free stores and approval of the passenger fee at $7.50 for five years.

Meanwhile, Ryanair now intends to transfer this capacity to "competing markets", such as Germany, Israel and Poland instead. "Ryanair will grow from 130mn passengers this year to 200mn passengers by 2024 and retains the hope that Ukraine might participate in this growth at some point in the future," O’Brien said.