Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry hopes to repair the runway at the Odesa international airport in 2017, Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said at a meeting with journalists in Kyiv late on Wednesday.

"The aviation development program is working. I hope that this year we will start repair of the runway at the Odesa airport," he said.

The minister added that the funds may be provided for some other directions.

As reported, in July 2016 now-resigned Head of Odesa Regional Administration Mikheil Saakashvili said that the Odesa airport could stop operating due to the bad state of the runway.

In February 2017 Vice President of Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) mentioned the bad state of the runway in Odesa.

Odesa International Airport is in the top three largest airports in Ukraine on the number of passengers in the first half of 2016. It performs regular and charter flights between the cities of Ukraine, the CIS, Western Europe, Asia, and Africa.