Nibulon has completed the 5th anniversary season of water passenger transportation 2021. This year, the company transported more than 22,000 passengers across the Dnieper, the Southern Bug and the Dnieper-Bug estuary. A total of 715 trips were made.
Five years ago, Nibulon initiated a water passenger transportation project for Ukrainians and supported it year after year, launching regular trips on its own, despite the slowdown in the development of water transportation in Ukraine and their economic disadvantage. The company has formed a passenger fleet, providing quality service, creating safe, comfortable, and modern transportation conditions with a professional team on each ship, equipped berths, and stations at their own expense, providing a convenient mechanism for purchasing tickets online and annually supporting the cost of tickets available to most Ukrainians. During the entire period of operation, Nibulon's passenger fleet carried more than 120,000 passengers.
Kherson residents and residents of the region have been waiting for the return of Nibulon Express, and the news about the start of the season has become top. This year's anniversary season, the company revived flights on the Dnieper, the first to launch the route Nova Kakhovka - Kherson - Gola Prystan. Our hydrofoils have been plying the route all summer, providing passengers with comfortable, fast transportation by the river instead of traveling in crowded and hot buses, not always on high-quality roads and with the possibility of congestion. And a trip along the Dnieper is a real unforgettable journey with incredible landscapes.
Many people are willing to use the services of a safe passenger ship. To meet the needs of all passengers, the shipping company "Nibulon" organised additional trips and numerous requests and requests - trips on holidays and pre-holiday days. As always, the most popular were trips to Kinburn Spit, which this year could be reached from Nikolaev and Ochakov. It is worth noting that the Nibulon Express trip is also a significant time-saver. From Nikolaev to the Kinburn spit "Nibulon rocket" delivers in 1 hour 45 minutes against usual 2,5 hours by motor transport and other doubtful watercraft. Most of the traffic is on the route Nikolaeiv - Kinburn Spit - Ochakov - 17 thousand passengers.
In autumn, Nibulon launched a weekend walking route to the Kovalevsky Forest for the second time. This season also attracted the attention of vacationers and encouraged tourism development in the south of the country.
Despite the considerable demand for passenger water transport in Ukraine today, only four hydrofoils operate on regular trips - and these are the vessels of the "Nibulon" fleet, when in 1991 under the Ukrainian flag "flew" 150 such vessels. Unfortunately, this disappointing trend applies to the entire passenger fleet - 108 against 2,500.
Instead, Nibulon does its best to promote water, the most environmentally friendly mode of transportation. We want passenger water transport to become commonplace on Ukrainian rivers, so that not only Nibulon "missiles" are recognized and photographed on the Dnieper or the Southern Buza, but so that thousands of passenger ships ply the inland waterways every day and deliver Ukrainians quickly, comfortably and affordably to the destination. Therefore, every season to draw attention to the river industry's problems and promote passenger traffic, "Nibulon" performs charitable trips on domestic routes for children, anti-terrorist operation participants, government officials, participants in thematic events, etc. In total, about 4,000 people were transported free of charge as part of such activities.
In the 2021 season, the company joined the State Agency for Tourism Development project to study the demand and the possibility of resuming regular tourist routes. In September, Nibulon Express-1 performed test trips with focus groups from Kyiv to Kaniv. As part of the promotion, participants had the opportunity to go through the locks, visit the Kaniv Reserve, including the Shevchenko Museum, and join a tour of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant. Also, present on the first trip were Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy, Yuriy Vaskov, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Volodymyr Kreidenko, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, and Maryana Oleskiv, Head of the State Agency for Tourism Development.
Based on the project results, recommendations are developed for further implementation of the programme of tourist water routes on the Dnieper. We hope that in the new season of shipping, there will be a full-fledged launch of tourist routes from Kyiv and other cities on the Dnieper, which will give impetus to the development of tourist infrastructure and water passenger transport in Ukraine.
