Ukrainian carriers not meeting UEFA standards?

Ukrainian carriers will not be able to make money during Euro-2012. Ukraine is going to allow foreign transport companies to be in charge of passenger traffic operations on the territory of our country during the European soccer championship. Markian LUBKIVSKY, director of Euro-2012 UEFA tournament, an­noun­­ced this information during the Euro-2012 preparation board meeting with the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. “In the near future the Ministry of Infra­struc­ture or the Cabinet of Ministers is going to grant foreign carriers the permission to carry out passenger transportation on the territory of Ukraine,” he says.

Lubkivsky said that the cabotage is going to last for approximately 40 to 45 days. “It is going to start two weeks before the championship (June 8, 2012), and will end a week or two after the final match takes place,” says he. Lubkivsky explained that the procedure itself is going to look like this: “Fans from, for example, Netherlands, Germany, and Poland are arriving at a Ukrainian airport, and they will have buses from their own countries waiting for them, to take them around the city or across the country. They will cater for them and leave the country after the cabo­tage period is over.” Today, Lubkivsky noted, the Ministry of Infrastructure is working on a clear permit system, and the very procedure of cabotage is being ela­borated. “We are at the final stage of the process,” he said to The Day.

When The Day asked what was wrong with Ukrainian transport companies, and why UEFA would not let them make some extra money during the tournament, Lubkivsky said that basically everything was fine. There is nothing personal, just pragmatic interest. “This action is not directed against Ukrainian carriers in any possible way, I would like to make that crystal clear,” he said to The Day. “The thing is that Ukraine does not own a required number of coaches to transport fans between the cities during the championship.” Unfortunately Lubkivsky could not give the exact number of coaches that is needed for Euro-2012, and the number of vehicles Ukrainian carriers are unable to provide. “We are short of buses only considering the fact that a huge number of fans is coming to the country, hundreds of thousands of them,” he said. He thinks that probably a little over 2,000 coaches are not enough to provide decent means of transportation for that “huge number” of people.

However, there is another reason why the UEFA is not pleased with Ukrai­nian carriers. “As soon as we started looking at the transport companies’ offers of services, we were shocked by the prices they set. Some even demanded 4,000 euros per day,” says Lubkivsky. As a matter of fact, he stresses that such prices were set by quite powerful transport companies. Lubkivsky refused to name the companies and their owners. “Maybe they think that the first thing we should impress the guests with, is the price,” he says. So this is how the UEFA shrank from Ukrainian carriers. Nobody is going to pay three or even four thousand euros per day just to use one bus, remarked the expert to The Day. It is cheaper to bring in the coaches from Netherlands, Germany, or France rather than pay the locals.Valentyn DEMCHUK, president of the National Civic Organization “Carriers Union” was astonished when The Day told him about the reasons for imposing the cabotage period. He assures that Ukrainian carriers could have never charged such prices. Today they barely make both ends meet, so they would be glad to have any decent earnings. In the best case, a coach earns an average of 2,000 hryvnias per day. Usually it is even less than that. That is why they were prepared to offer their services for 3,000 hryvnias per day per coach. Demchuk thinks that 4,000 euros per day is an exorbitant price. “Our trans­port companies do not even dream of such prices. If I ever tell them about this, they are going to laugh at me and say they are ready to buy buses on credit specially for Euro-2012,” he says.

Neither partners nor sponsors of the UEFA have ever appealed to the members of association led by Demchuk with a proposal of cooperation. “If there were any information avai­­lab­le, it came from the Mi­nistry of Infra­structure. I visit it quite often, and have heard something like that, but there have been no definite offers,” he told The Day.