Deputy Minister of Communities and Territories Development Sergiy Derkach met with Greece's Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Christos Dimas. The result — 50 permits for irregular passenger transportation between the two countries plus a verbal agreement on a possible quota increase. Official confirmation from the Greek ministry is already in place.
What the figure 50 means
Irregular transportation refers to tourist flights and organized group trips that do not fit into regular routes. The bilateral Agreement between the governments of Ukraine and Greece, signed in 1996 and ratified in 2000, requires separate permits for such flights, with the quantity determined by the Joint Commission of the two countries. In 2024, no permits were issued — Ukrainian carriers either hired foreign companies or transferred passengers to foreign buses already at the border.
For comparison: in parallel with Romania, the Ministry of Development agreed on 2,000 one-time permits — 40 times more. The difference in scale reflects both different geographic accessibility and different negotiating positions.
"We agreed with Greece. The permits are on their way to Ukraine"
— Sergiy Derkach, after meeting in Leipzig, June 2025
This is not the first agreement this season: back in June 2025, at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, Derkach announced 100 permits from Greece, according to Interfax. The new meeting with Dimas is either a second batch or official bilateral confirmation of previous agreements. The Ministry of Development did not publicly explain this distinction.
Mechanism — the weakest link
The Agreement provides for "the possibility of increasing the quota," but without a clear trigger: who initiates the review, what procedure applies, and within what timeframe — is not specified. In other words, the increase depends on the goodwill of both parties, not on an automatic mechanism.
Each permit is one-time per trip in both directions for one bus. With standard capacity of 50–55 passengers, 50 permits = at most 2,500–2,750 seats for the entire season. According to official data, approximately 70,000 Ukrainians permanently reside in Greece alone, half of whom arrived after February 2022 and are under temporary protection until March 2027. Demand for movement between the two countries — in both directions — obviously exceeds this figure.
- Ukraine's airspace is closed — no flights, only land transport.
- Permits are not transferred to third parties — a specific transport company receives them.
- The procedure for distributing permits among carriers was not separately announced by the Ministry of Development.
What this means in practice
The agreement eliminates the legal vacuum of 2024 and provides a legal framework for tourist and group flights. For a small number of carriers who manage to obtain permits, this is a real opportunity to launch routes this season. For the rest of the market — the situation has not changed.
If the Ministry of Development does not initiate a quota review by the end of the tourist season and does not announce a transparent mechanism for distributing permits among carriers, the 50 permits will remain an administrative checkmark rather than a real restoration of transport connections between the two countries.
