Bees Airline, the Ukrainian startup, started flying to Prague yesterday when it inaugurated its new scheduled service from the Czech capital to Ukraine’s coastal town of Odesa.
Bees lands in Prague
Bees Airline landed in Prague yesterday on its first scheduled flight to Czechia’s capital city.
As of yesterday, Bees’ flights between Odesa (ODS) and Prague (PRG) run as follows:
- Flight 7B203 leaves ODS at 09:30 and arrives in PRG at 10:45
- Flight 7B204 leaves PRG at 11:45 and arrives in ODS at 15:00
Flights run each Thursday and Sunday, and tickets are on sale on Bees’ website until Sunday 16th January.
All flights are scheduled to be operated by Boeing 737-800 aircraft in Bees’ colorful livery. The airline has four 737s in its fleet.
Bees is operating the flight as part of a W-pattern to make it work operationally, since its base is in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv (IEV), and not in Odesa.
The pattern is as follows:
- Flight 7B103 from IEV to ODS
- Flight 7B203 from ODS to PRG
- Flight 7B204 from PRG to ODS
- Flight 7B104 from ODS to IEV
An established market left vacant
Bees Airline faces no competition on this new route, but the market between Prague and Odesa is an established one. The route was once previously served by Czechia’s diminished flag carrier, Czech Airlines.
Czech Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection in February this year. Over the past year, it has reduced its route network greatly as its parent airline, Smartwings, kept alive the more lucrative markets in Europe this summer.
The Czech flag carrier even planned to resume flying from Prague to Odesa this year when it announced a wave of route resumptions in May. However, this plan fell through.
Thus, Bees is now the sole operator between Odesa and Prague, but, at this stage, it is still maintaining prices that are lower than those of full-service carriers flying between Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
For example, Bees’ Prague to Odesa flight this Sunday is currently selling for $62.
Meanwhile, as a comparison, Czech Airlines is selling tickets for its flight from Prague to Kyiv this Sunday for $123 and Ukraine International Airlines for $292.
Aviation is booming in Ukraine
Ukraine has seen a flurry of new route launches recently, after the country signed an open skies agreement with the European Union last week.
Not even one day later, Wizz Air reacted with a major expansion of its operations between Ukraine and the European Union as it announced it would base an additional seven aircraft in the country by summer 2022, and that it would launch an incredible 26 new routes from four Ukrainian cities.
It will be interesting to see what other new routes to the European Union Bees will be launching in response to the agreement as well.
What do you think of Bees Airline? Let us know what you think of this new route in the comments below.