The tour operator Join UP!, owned by the co-founders of the Ukrainian SkyUp Airlines Tetiana and Yuriy Alba, has opened representative offices in six new countries and closed in Belarus since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, SkyUp CEO Dmytro Seroukhov said in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

“Join UP! managed to open in six countries and close in one in these one and a half years after the start of the full-scale war. They opened in three Baltic countries, as well as in Poland, Romania, and Kazakhstan. They closed in Belarus,” Seroukhov said.

He emphasized that the company ceased operations in Belarus from the first days of the full-scale war.

“A tour operator cannot work there as long as there is a current political regime. Despite any possible income, in general this is absolutely unacceptable,” said the CEO of SkyUp.

He recalled that tour operator Join UP! is the founder of SkyUp.

"Tourism for us is... from our birth. We were born thanks to tourism. Our founders are the tour operator Join UP! We were first a small tour operator, then a large one, then the largest. Then we drove the entire Ukrainian tourism market, developed it, and constantly opened new directions. All this led us to the fact that we created an airline. At first, it was supposed to provide only the needs of a tour operator, but we soon realized that this was not enough. And it is much more interesting to fully develop the company, to have charter flights in tourist destinations and regular flights, including carrying out internal Ukrainian transportation," Seroukhov said.