First official flights of Supernova Airlines to be Riga-Rzeszow, Riga-Chisinau

KYIV. March 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Supernova Airlines, which is part of the Nova Poshta group of companies, will perform the first cargo flights within Europe on the Riga-Rzeszow-Riga and Riga-Chisinau-Riga routes in April, Nova Poshta co-founder Viacheslav Klymov has said.

“We have two aircraft. In the coming weeks, we are waiting for the first official flights. These will be Riga-Zheszow-Riga and Riga-Chisinau-Riga,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the Summit of Exporters organized Forbes Ukraine in Kyiv.

Klymov said that the company is in the process of leasing a wide-body aircraft capable of crossing the ocean.

“Mainly, the airline is being created to organize delivery from the United States and China,” the co-founder said.

At the same time, he said that there are problems with attracting a wide-body aircraft to the Supernova Airlines fleet. Since the start of the pandemic, cargo aircraft are in significant demand.

“Therefore, for all airlines in the world, finding and signing a contract for such an aircraft is a big problem. The waiting time is up to three years. Additionally, the search is complicated by the fact that we are a Ukrainian business, and lessors consider this one of the risks associated with the full-scale Russian invasion. But we are working on it,” Klymov said.

Nova Poshta currently delivers AliExpress packages from China, and iHerb packages from the United States to Ukraine.

The company published a photo of a 1978 Supernova Airlines AN-26-100 cargo plane, indicating that the aircraft is based in the city of Piešťany in Slovakia.

Supernova Airlines, part of the Nova Poshta group of companies, received a Ukrainian air operator certificate on January 6, which makes it possible to start cargo flights. It was reported that the first flight is planned to perform in the spring of 2023.