Largest passenger plane evacuated from Ukraine yesterday

A plane that took off from Boryspil Airport on 19 December was the largest passenger aircraft in Ukraine, a Boeing 777-300ER. It was evacuated to Europe. Source: avianews.com

Details: According to open data from Flightradar24, the airliner, with tail number UR-AZR, operated by Skyline Express, formerly known as Azur Air Ukraine, took off from Boryspil in the morning and landed at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrenees airport in France a few hours later.

"This airfield is used as a base for airliner maintenance and long-term storage," avianews.com states. On 24 February 2022, the Boeing 777-300ER was at Boryspil Airport and unable to take off because Ukrainian airspace had been closed due to the start of the full-scale invasion. The Boeing 777-300ER arrived in Ukraine at the end of 2021 after being operated by the Russian airline Azur Air.

What made the airliner special was its capacity - it could carry 531 passengers, a record for Ukrainian aviation. Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the airliner was used to take tourists travelling with the affiliated tour operator Anex Tour to Caribbean resorts in the Dominican Republic and Cancun, Mexico. In addition to the Boeing 777-300ER, two Airbus A400 military transport aircraft were evacuated by Turkiye on 20 December 2022.

They had arrived at Boryspil on the night of 23-24 February 2022 and remained stuck there due to the closure of Ukrainian airspace. Also, on 4 April 2023, Ukrainian airline SkyUp was able to fly a Boeing 737-800, registration UR-SQP, from Boryspil Airport to Romania. This was the airline's only aircraft that was in Ukraine at the time of Russia's invasion.

Background: The Boeing 777-300 took off from Boryspil International Airport at around 09:00 on 19 December 2023. Boryspil Airport said in a statement that this technical overhaul of the aircraft "contributes to testing the [flight - ed.] resumption policy".

It was also reported that this was the fourth successful flight from Boryspil Airport since the beginning of the full-scale war. 

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