Mikheil Saakashvili, the head of Odesa Regional Administration, has demand that the investor involved in the reconstruction of Odesa airport should complete construction work by autumn and launch the enterprise in spring 2016, otherwise the authorities in the region will start looking for a new investor.

He also told reporters at a meeting of the commission of the State Aviation Service on June 26 that he also demanded that the investor should present guarantees for the completion of the work.

He said that if the airport is not finished, one of three military airports near Odesa could be reconstructed and reorganized as a civil airport.

As reported, in early July 2011 Odesa City Council agreed to participate in the joint venture Odesa International Airport LLC, created to reconstruct the municipal enterprise Odesa International Airport. The second participant in the venture was Odessa Airport Development Ltd. with a charter capital of about UAH 1,000. The share of Odesa City Council in the joint venture was 25%, while the city council injected property worth UAH 118.4 million into the charter capital of Odesa airport. The charter capital of the joint venture was required to be UAH 473.4 million. The remaining part was to have been injected by the private company.

However, construction work was carried out using funds received under a credit where the property of the municipal enterprise was used as collateral. The investor refused to reconstruct the runway, and the Infrastructure Ministry said that the required funds of over UAH 1.6 billion will be provided from the national budget or borrowed under government guarantees, however the funds were not provided.

In March 2014, Head of Odesa Regional Administration Volodymyr Nemyrovsky said the construction of a new terminal at Odesa airport had stopped.

On June 26, the Odesa City Council set up a commission to verify the fulfillment of obligations by the investor under the agreement on joint activities between the city council and a private company on the reconstruction of Odesa airport. In July 2014, the Prosecutor General's Office in Odesa region said it was investigating the reconstruction of the airport.

In November 2014, Odesa City Council filed a lawsuit in court to invalidate the provisions of the charter and the agreement with the investor, determining the stakes of the city and the investor, as well as contributions to the charter capital of Odesa International Airport LLC. The suit was initiated by Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov.

According to the mayor, the city's stake in the charter capital of the airport, which is 25%, does not allow it to influence decisions on determining the strategy of the airport's development.

Therefore the city council intends to seek a judicial revision of the city's stake.

In February 2015, Chairman of Odesa Regional State Administration Ihor Palitsa appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office, asking it to help return Odesa airport to municipal ownership.