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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it would allow U.S. airlines and codeshare partners to resume flights at three Ukrainian airports and over parts of the Black Sea, citing improved safety and security in parts of Ukraine. That prohibition was expanded in July 2014 to include the entire UKFV FIR, as well as the Dnipropetrovsk FIR (UKDV), following a rise in hostilities between the Ukraine military and pro-Russian separatists, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that month, which killed 280 passengers and 15 crew. The FAA said in a notice filed on a government website it would maintain prohibitions on flights over the Crimea and parts of Ukraine. The air safety agency said it would allow takeoffs and landings at Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia international airports in Ukraine, saying operations could be conducted with “minimal additional risk.”

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, prompting international condemnation and Western sanctions, but since then there have been no major outbreaks of violence on the peninsula. The FAA said those airports are safe because of a “buffer from the area of fighting and associated weapons capabilities.”

While operations over the Crimean Peninsula in the UKFV FIR remain suspended, the FAA will allow US civil operations over four Black Sea routes, which are over the high seas and deemed to be sufficiently offshore from the Crimea.
The Federal Aviation Administration states that it will allow U.S. airlines to resume flights at three Ukrainian airports, at Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhia, and over parts of the Black Sea, citing improved safety and security in parts of Ukraine.