Surgut. On Thursday, September 9, UTair Aviation made the first regular international flight from the airport of Khanty-Mansiysk, the capital of Yugra, to Kiev (Flight No. TP 747).

The ceremony of opening the new route was attended by Vasiliy Sondykov, the chairman of the Duma of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, Zinaida Sakhautdinova, the director of the Department of Foreign Economic Relations of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, Vladimir Zhuravlyov, the director of the Transport and Communications Department of Yugra, Andrey Martirosov, the general director of UTair, and Anatoly Tulinov, the general director of the Khanty-Mansiysk Airport.

In the opinion of Vasiliy Sondykov, the speaker of the Duma of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area, the opening of the first regular international route from the airport of the capital of Yugra to Ukraine is not by chance.

“Over 200,000 Ukrainians live in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area now. Obviously, communications with that country are necessary, because we have good neighborly relations,” the chairman of the Duma of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area underlined.

As UTair General Director Andrey Martirosov pointed out at the opening ceremony, “certainly, this is just the beginning.”

“In my view, the prospects for the international sector in Khanty-Mansiysk are rather good. We will build a convenient network of routes for the residents of the city and the autonomous area, which can be used for making convenient connections here and making international departures from here. In think, a very big step forward has been made,” the chief executive of the airline declared.

There were 11 people on the first flight to the capital of Ukraine.

“We believe that it is not bad to have 11 people on the first flight. This indicates a big potential for this route, and I think we will see this route profitable rather soon, and therefore we are optimistic,” Andrey Martirosov stated.

Additionally, according to him, flights to Azerbaijan, Turkey, Bulgaria and some other countries will be carried out from the Khanty-Mansiysk Airport in the future.