Turkish Airlines (THY) is raising the number of its flights to Ukraine due to an increase in the number of passengers flying to the country with the flag carrier.

At a press conference in Ukraine's capital, THY Kiev Director Dinçer Sayıcı announced the airlines 2018 statistics and 2019 plans in the country.

THY scheduled 82 flights a week from Ukraine to Turkey, including cargo flights, Sayıcı told Demirören News Agency (DHA). He underlined that THY stands out as the leading foreign airline flying to the most cities in Ukraine. "We are proud to be the only foreign airline operating in Ukraine with wide-body aircraft," Sayıcı said. "Hopefully, we will continue this success in 2019 as well." Sayıcı added that on April 6, 2019, THY will start direct flights between Kiev and Bodrum. "We will continue adding direct flights in the coming years.

He said that in 2018, THY raised the number of weekly flights to Lviv to 10 and flights to Odessa to 21. "As of Feb. 15, three new flights will be launched on the Istanbul-Kiev line, increasing the number of flights between the two cities to 24," he added.

In 2018, the number of Turkish Airlines' passengers between Ukraine and Turkey surged by 28 percent to 800,000. Last year, THY's transit passengers from Ukraine rose by 25 percent compared to 2017, while the number of transit passengers from Kiev saw an increase of 14 percent in the same period. Ukrainian transit passengers traveling with THY mostly preferred the Far East, Asia and the U.S. in 2018.