An Airbus A330-300 belonging to the Maltese company SmartLynx Airlines that had been stranded in Lviv since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has become the fourth successfully evacuated civilian aircraft from the country, as reported by the Ukrainian media avianews.com.
See also: Running an airline during a war: a Q&A with SkyUp’s CCO, Lyudmila Slobodyanyuk
SmartLynx Retrieves an Airbus A330 Stranded in Lviv
The aircraft, registered as 9H-SME, departed yesterday morning, Thursday June 1, and landed in Warsaw at 07:16 local time, according to information provided by flight tracking applications.
After spending several hours at the airport serving the capital city of Poland, the Airbus A330-300 departed for Chateauroux, France. There, it will undergo the necessary inspections and maintenance tasks for such cases.
The aircraft had arrived in Lviv on 23 February 2022, one day before the start of the Russian invasion. Windrose, a Ukrainian carrier that operates charter services, had leased it to carry out cargo flights. The closure of the airspace and the constant threat of possible attacks caused it to remain stranded for over two years.
See also: SkyUp Airlines Successfully Evacuates Stranded Boeing 737 from War-Torn Ukraine
Evacuations of civilian aircraft from Ukraine
The evacuation of civilian aircraft from Ukrainian airports is a challenging task. The airspace remains closed, so aircraft can only fly under a special procedure and with permission. So far, only four operations of this kind have been successfully carried out.
The first evacuation from Lviv took place on 2 April 2022, when an ATR 72 from Windrose was successfully transported to Warsaw. On September 13 of that year, Wizz Air successfully evacuated the Airbus A320 registered as HA-LWS, which later landed in Katowice, also in Poland.
On 4 April 2023, Ukrainian airline SkyUp managed to evacuate the Boeing 737-800 registered as UR-SQP from Boryspil International Airport (KBP) in Kyiv, which remains completely closed for commercial operations. The aircraft flew to Romania.
