Early years The airport began in 1923 as a military airfield co-used by the
Ukrpovitroshlyakh (Ukrainian Society of Air Communications), Ukraine's earliest civil aviation company, which in 1934 was integrated into
Aeroflot as the latter's regional administration. The airport terminal was built only after
World War II in 1949. Until the 1960s, Zhuliany was the only passenger airport serving Kyiv. In 1959, the larger
Boryspil International Airport was built near the city of
Boryspil, gradually replacing Zhuliany as the main airport serving Kyiv. Since that time the old "Kyiv" airport became commonly known just as "Zhuliany" (or
Kyiv-Zhuliany) and was used for Soviet domestic flights only.
International flights and traffic revival After Ukraine regained independence in 1991, Zhuliany began receiving international flights from nearby countries (first from its
former Soviet "domestic" destinations), increasingly so since the 2000s when Ukraine's civil aviation started booming. On 27 March 2011,
Wizz Air, a European
low-cost airline, moved all its operations to Zhuliany from Boryspil, bringing around-the-clock flights to the airport and increasing passenger traffic by 15 to 20%. In 2012, the airport managed to survive the
European cold wave without major flight delays or cancellations. Surrounded by major
railways,
highways and residential districts, the airport has limited possibilities to expand its
runway. Therefore, it is limited in the
weight of aircraft that are allowed to fly in the airport (currently up to
Boeing 737/
Airbus A320 type). In 2013, the airport declared plans to expand the runway for additional 150 m, although stressing complete safety and operability of its current length. Other parts of the airport infrastructure are also being developed. The new "A"
terminal opened on 17 May 2012, now receives all international and some domestic flights. Projects for expanding Zhuliany's
taxiways and aircraft parking lots are being considered as well.
Recent developments In the first half of 2013, the airport's passenger traffic rose 2.7-fold (to 816,757 passengers per year) since the beginning of the year, including 4.2-fold growth of the domestic traffic. According to the media and industry experts, once underdog Zhuliany Airport has rapidly grown into a major, and more efficient, competitor to the country's leading Boryspil Airport. As of July 2013,
Moscow,
Treviso and
Dortmund were the most popular international destinations from the airport, with
Simferopol,
Donetsk and
Odesa leading among domestic destinations. with currently 3 terminals in service. In March 2015,
Wizz Air Ukraine announced that it would cease operations leading to the cancellation of several routes from their base at the airport. Only some of their former routes were taken over by its parent,
Wizz Air, though the airline has since expanded its flight network from the airport, with twenty destinations to be served by August 2017. Between 14 and 24 May 2017, the airport was closed for runway improvement work. On 22 March 2018, the
Kyiv City Council officially renamed the airport
International Airport "Kyiv" (Zhulyany) Igor Sikorsky in honor of
Igor Sikorsky. On 24 February 2022, five explosions erupted as part of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. On the same day, Ukraine closed airspace to civilian flights. The airspace and the airport remain closed. ==Airlines and destinations==