The district administrative court of Kyiv has fully satisfied a claim made by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) and declared Infrastructure Ministry order No. 245 of March 23, 2013 on the approval of a procedure on assigning and revoking rights to exploit air routes as illegal and invalid.

The decision is stipulated in court ruling No. 826/20406/14 of March 3, 2015.

"The ruling can be challenged in the court of appeals via the submission of a counterclaim to the district administrative court of Kyiv within 10 days from the moment of the announcement of the ruling," reads the ruling.

However, a lawyer of Marchenko Danevych law firm Andriy Huk wrote on his Facebook page that a six month period is set for filing claims with the administrative court to protect the rights, freedoms and interests of persons, which starts on the day when persons learn or are to learn about the violation of their rights, freedoms of interests.

He said that the court had heard UIA's claim, despite the fact that the claimant missed the above-mentioned term. In particular, the court came to the conclusion that UIA learnt about the current procedure at the end of 2014, or more than one year after the publication of the procedure document.

Huk also said that according to the ruling, it is impossible to perform flights without having the right to exploit air routes under the requirements of the Air Code of Ukraine. Declaring order No. 245 as illegal in the future could result in companies which received the rights on the basis of this legal act passed by the defender (the Infrastructure Ministry) facing large losses. The court said that order No. 254 is declared as invalid not from the moment of its adoption, but from the moment of the court's decision.

Huk said this means that despite this court ruling, order No. 245 was observed by the State Aviation Service of Ukraine.