Thousands of Kharkiv IT Specialists want to fly abroad without transfers

IT Cluster IT Cluster

More than 4200 flights per year and all of them were made with transfers! It is a number of business trips conducted by IT employees whose companies took part in the research of Kharkiv IT Cluster.

In December 2016 Kharkiv IT Cluster performed an investigation with 62 Kharkiv IT companies involved. The company top management completed a questionnaire with the next points:

  • How many official journeys abroad did your employees make from Kharkiv in 2016?
  • How many foreign partners did visit you in 2016 (we mean the number of people)?
  • Note the countries where your employees traveled by plane in 2016?
  • In what way do you solve the problem with international flights?
  • Has your company got any need in enlarging air-destinations from Kharkiv? If yes, why?
  • What international destinations would you like to have from Kharkiv?

Having analyzed the answers given, we list our data and conclusions:

  • In 2016 employees of the examined companies made 2136 international business trips. Taking into account that a business trip presumes two flights (out and home) we can get 4272 flights per year.
  • In 2016 the examined companies were visited by 757 international partners. Regarding that foreign guests had to go back home, we get 1514 flights.
  • Let’s assume the numbers listed above.  Thus in 2016, we get 5786 air trips as a total amount of business trips conducted by the examinedcompanies.
  • 74 % of the examined company top managers (42 from 62) remarked: their employees fly out of Kharkiv but have to make a transfer later.
  • 59 from 62 top managers mentioned that their companies would work more efficient if Kharkiv airport increased its flight destinations.

Top 10 countries having air-traffic with Kharkiv are the USA, Germany, The UK, Israel, Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Austria, Turkey, France.

According to Kharkiv IT Cluster data, there are more than 300 IT companies and about 25 000 IT specialists in Kharkiv region. The whole IT industry is oriented on the Western market (Europe and North America).

Now one can get to Western Europe just via single regular flight (Kharkiv – Warsaw). It was set up a year ago in March 2016 and is to become daily by summer 2017.

But still, international airlines stand back from Kharkiv. Before the beginning of the military conflict in the East of Ukraine, we had direct flights to Vienna. But with war actions had started Austrian Airlines left Kharkiv.

What is the situation now? In spite of the crisis, Kharkiv air traffic tends to grow. ‘In December 2016 Kharkiv airport traffic came out at 52 300 passengers – that is 60% more than in the same period last year’, informed the Press Office of International Airport Kharkiv.

To date, our city has got regular destinations to Kyiv, Minsk (Belarus), Tel Aviv (Israel), Istanbul (Turkey), Kutaisi (Georgia).

Kharkiv IT Cluster is aimed at helping  IT community in various activities. Direct international flights are up to date problem for Kharkiv region.
So since January 2017, we have launched a new project IT Flight. Its goal is widening air-destinations from Kharkiv to the global world.

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