Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv) intends to reduce its fleet by 9% in 2015, the head of the supervisory board of the carrier, Aron Maiberg said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

He said that this year UIA cut its fleet by 11% (as of November 2014), to 33 planes.

In addition, this year UIA reduced its workforce by 5%, to 2,373 employees and in 2015, the airline plans to cut it by 26%, to 1,762 employees.

Maiberg also said that in the period from November 1, 2013 to November 1, 2014 the airline paid UAH 222.4 million to the budgets of all levels.

He said that in 2014 due to the impossibility of flying to Donetsk and Simferopol the airline lost 300,000 passengers on the routes and due to the reduction of flights to Russia it has lost another 280,000 passengers.

Maiberg said that in 2015, the airline plans to be the leading carrier in the country using the network model based in the Boryspil airport. In addition, the airline will focus on expense reduction via optimization of technical processes, introduction of new IT technologies, upgrade of the fleet and introduction of effective expense management systems.

In addition, it is planned to develop transportation from the Ukrainian regions using a low-budget model. He said that this concerns international transportation from four or five destinations which will be defined in the near term.

As reported, UIA has not been issued a stabilization loan of $100 million it requested for from the government of Ukraine, and now the fate of the letter of request for the loan is not known.

According to Maiberg, at present UIA has no problems with liquidity: the shareholders have provided financial support in the form of long-term borrowings.

Asked about the prospects of the further development of UIA if the state loan is not obtained, the head of the supervisory council said "if previously the company's strategy was based on large infrastructure projects, then now it will focus on air travel."

"We are moving to a different model, abandoned ambitions and turn to outsourcing, which explains the staff reduction by 26% planned for 2015. UIA will focus on its core business - air transportation," the expert said.