Ryanair and the reopening of Ukraine’s skies: discounts, risk and the prize for being first

Tuesday 27 January 2026

There is a particular kind of optimism that arrives not in speeches but in timetables. When an airport begins to talk seriously about slots, ground handling, insurance layers and runway inspections, it is no longer imagining peace as a word but as a schedule. In Ukraine, where civil aviation has been suspended since the first hours of the full-scale invasion, the idea that commercial flights might resume has therefore acquired outsized political and economic meaning. It is a proxy for normality, for reconnecting families and markets, and for signalling to investors that Ukraine is not merely surviving but reconstituting herself.

Ryanair, Europe’s most relentless practitioner of low-cost aviation, is positioning itself to be amongst the first movers if Ukrainian skies reopen. Yet it is doing so on brand: loudly, conditionally and with a demand that has become the centre of the conversation. Chief Executive Michael O’Leary has said Ryanair wants “aggressive discounts” from Ukrainian airports on charges in the post-war period and has linked the scale of Ryanair’s promised return to the size of those concessions. Without the sort of fee reductions Ryanair typically negotiates, he has suggested the airline might scale down from millions of passengers to a far smaller operation. 

That is not merely a spat over landing fees. It is a test case for how Ukraine finances recovery, how she manages private leverage over public infrastructure, and how she balances the symbolic value of being “open” against the genuine, quantifiable risks of reopening too early.

The airspace problem that discounts cannot solve

The starting point is stark. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s conflict-zone advisory on Ukraine remains active and, as of 26 January 2026, has been extended until 31 July 2026. It reminds operators that Ukraine’s airspace is an active conflict zone and recommends that they do not operate within it, including landings and departures from airports located there. 

In other words even if Ukraine wished tomorrow to waive every airport fee and roll out a red carpet of incentives, the question of safety regulation and operator duty of care would not disappear. Commercial aviation is an industry in which risk is not only experienced, but priced, insured, certified and litigated. An airline that is “first” without being “safe enough” is not brave; it is exposed.

This is why insurance has become the hinge upon which all realistic reopening plans swing. Boryspil Airport has publicly described negotiations with the London insurance market, emphasising that insurance and reinsurance are the cornerstone without which resumption of air connectivity is impossible and framing the project as the foundation of international confidence. Ukraine has also discussed phased reopening concepts, often focused on one airport as a pilot, with Lviv and Boryspil recurrently mentioned in public reporting. 

The financial logic is simple. War risk is not a marginal add-on. It changes everything: the cost of hull and liability coverage, the willingness of lessors to keep aircraft deployed, the appetite of crew to operate, and the legal posture of insurers when an incident occurs. Even where an airline is willing, its underwriters may not be.

Why Ryanair’s “big discount” demand is more than theatre

Ryanair’s model depends upon low airport charges and high aircraft utilisation. It routinely negotiates incentives, rebates or marketing support with airports that want volume. In normal times, this is an aggressive but familiar bargain: the airline brings passengers, the airport makes its money through scale, retail spend and broader regional growth.

Ukraine’s post-war context makes the bargain stranger. Airports will be emerging from years of near-total revenue collapse, some with physical damage, all with deferred maintenance and staffing challenges. Their owners, often the state or state-linked entities, will also be under pressure to avoid the perception that they are “giving away” national assets at a moment of reconstruction.

O’Leary has framed the discounts as a catalyst for “radical growth” and economic rebuilding, and he has criticised what he describes as the idea of “egregious profit making by empty airports”. This framing is rhetorically clever. It implies that airports insisting on charges are obstructing recovery, when in fact they may be trying to finance basic readiness and safety.

The deeper point is that discounts are a way of shifting risk. If the airport lowers charges, it is effectively underwriting a portion of the airline’s commercial risk through foregone revenue. In a fragile post-war market, that can be defensible if it buys durable connectivity, tourism, business travel and diaspora return. But it is not costless. It is a fiscal choice, and Ukraine will have many competing demands for subsidy: power infrastructure, housing, defence production, veterans’ care, demining and pensions, amongst others.

The prize for being first: economic gravity and political symbolism

Why, then, is there so much appetite to be first at all?

First, because aviation is not merely transport. It is economic gravity. A functioning international airport pulls in conference business, higher-value tourism, logistics services, foreign executives, technical specialists and diaspora visitors who have limited time. Trains and roads can carry many people, but aviation compresses distance and, in doing so, changes behaviour. Investors who will not spend two days in transit may spend two hours in the air.

Secondly, because the first airline back becomes a signal, and signals matter in reconstruction. A flag on a route map becomes a story: “Ukraine is open”, “Kyiv is reachable”, “Lviv is connected again”. This is why governments care about inaugural flights. The politics is not incidental; it is the point.

Thirdly, because the initial reopening will likely concentrate demand. If only one or two airports reopen at first, the early mover can capture market share, lock in slots and shape passenger expectations. Ryanair has spoken of flying to up to 30 European destinations from Kyiv and Lviv after the war and of scaling passenger volumes rapidly. If it secures favourable terms early, she can embed itself as the default carrier for price-sensitive travellers, including the very large cohort of Ukrainians who have relocated across Europe since 2022.

Finally, because there is a moral economy to “showing up”. Airlines that return early will be able to present themselves as partners in recovery. That is not merely public relations; it may influence future regulatory goodwill, bilateral arrangements and commercial relationships with airports and the state.

The risks: safety, insurance, reputation and the problem of ambiguity

The risks are equally plain, but they come in layers.

Safety risk is not abstract. The EASA advisory explicitly points to the danger of intentional targeting or misidentification of civil aircraft, as well as the presence of a wide range of warfare systems that pose a high risk at all altitudes. Even if front lines stabilise, the threat of long-range missiles, drones and sabotage does not necessarily vanish with a signature on paper. A “formal cessation of hostilities” may be less meaningful than the credibility of enforcement and the robustness of air defence and airspace management.

Insurance risk is the financial translation of safety risk. Boryspil’s emphasis on London-market negotiations is telling: Ukraine is attempting to assemble a structure that makes commercial operations insurable again. Yet insurance is not simply a certificate; it is a set of exclusions, deductibles and claims behaviours that can break an airline’s economics if misjudged.

Reputational risk follows. An early mover gains prestige if operations are smooth. But if an incident occurs, the “first mover” story flips instantly into a story of recklessness. Airlines are custodians of trust. Even a near miss can chill demand and raise political controversy.

Operational risk is more mundane but potentially decisive. Airports returning from closure must rebuild staffing, security routines, maintenance cycles, navigation services and contingency procedures. Supply chains for parts, fuel resilience and emergency response must be tested. A single diversion or cancellation can become routine if the system is not ready.

Then there is the risk of ambiguity, which is perhaps the most politically awkward: reopening without a formal ceasefire. Some proposals in public discussion have imagined limited corridors, restricted operating hours or a single western airport reopening under particular protective arrangements. If that occurred, an airline would be operating in a space that is neither “war” nor “peace” in a legal sense. Ambiguity is the friend of litigation and the enemy of underwriting. It is also the enemy of public confidence, because passengers understand ambiguity as danger (although Ukrainian passengers may have a higher tolerance for danger than many).

A pragmatic way to read the discounts: incentives as a reconstruction instrument

It is still possible, however, to argue that Ryanair’s insistence on discounts is not purely opportunistic, even if it is self-interested.

Ukraine will need demand to return at scale. A rebuilt airport without flights is a monument, not an engine. If discounts buy volume quickly, volume may rebuild habits: business trips resume, family visits become feasible, domestic conferences restart, and European city pairs reconnect. In that sense, discounts can be viewed as a reconstruction instrument, similar in principle to tax holidays for investment zones or subsidised lending for small business.

The more difficult question is governance: who decides the level and structure of those incentives and how the public value is measured.

A sensible model would treat early years as a ramp, not a giveaway. Discounts might be tied to passenger targets, route diversity, year-round service and commitments to base aircraft and crews locally when conditions allow. They might also be staged, with higher incentives during the earliest period and a transparent taper as volumes recover. In that way, Ukraine avoids the trap of becoming locked indefinitely into unfavourable terms negotiated under emotional pressure to “reopen”.

The geopolitical subtext: Europe, credibility and the politics of resilience

There is also a European dimension. If budget carriers can resume quickly after a ceasefire, they demonstrate that Ukraine’s reintegration is not only a diplomatic slogan but a practical reality. Reuters reporting has described other low-cost carriers, including Wizz Air, as aiming to restart within weeks of a ceasefire, guided by safety assessments and operational readiness. Competition will therefore be intense. The first movers will not merely be serving passengers; they will be helping define what “post-war normal” looks like.

For Ukraine, the strategic advantage of reopening aviation is that it tightens her integration with Europe through routines, not treaties: weekend flights, student travel, family reunions and business hops. Those patterns create constituencies for continued support. They make Ukraine present in European life rather than present only in European news.

So will Ryanair fly soon, and on what terms?

The prospect of Ryanair resuming flights to Ukraine is real in the sense that the commercial incentive is obvious and the airline has been explicit about its ambition. The constraint is not imagination but conditions: airspace risk assessments, a credible insurance framework, and an initial operational model that can withstand shock.

The “big discounts” are likely to remain part of the negotiation, because they are the language Ryanair speaks. But Ukraine is not obliged to accept a binary choice between extortionate fees and a giveaway. She can, and should, treat airport charging policy as part of national recovery planning, with clear objectives and performance measures.

Being first will bring advantages: headlines, market share, goodwill and a claim to partnership in rebuilding. But being first without being robust would be a hollow victory. Ukraine has already paid too high a price for symbols that are not backed by systems. Aviation, more than most industries, punishes wishful thinking.

If Ukrainian airports and the state can assemble credible insurance, phase the reopening cautiously, and structure incentives that reward durable connectivity rather than short-term publicity, then the first commercial flights will not merely be a return of travel. They will be an announcement that Ukraine is again a place one can reach, and therefore again a place one can invest in, work in, and imagine a future within. That is why the argument over discounts matters. It is, in miniature, an argument over the terms on which Ukraine reconnects with the world.