The Turkish Air Force/Türk Hava Kuvvetleri has successfully repatriated both of its A400Ms that were stuck at Kyiv Boryspil since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.
The Turkish Ministry of National Defence said the two military transports departed Kyiv on December 20 and arrived safely at Kayseri airport. It did not provide any further details as to how the ferry flights were arranged.
17-0080 (msn 80) and 18-0093 (msn 93) flew to the Ukrainian capital during the night of February 23/24, 2022. According to the Turkish Ministry of Defence, the aircraft were delivering humanitarian aid to Ukraine and were due to evacuate Turkish citizens on the return leg, given the risk of hostilities. However, once Russia's incursion unfurled in the early hours of February 24, Ukrainian airspace was closed to all flights, including government and non-combat-related military operations. The two Airbus Defence and Space turboprops were put in storage as Ankara attempted, without success, to negotiate their safe passage with the Kremlin.
The ch-aviation fleets module shows that the Turkish Air Force operates ten A400Ms in total.
The A400Ms' evacuation mark's the third such instance that non-combat aircraft have managed to leave Ukraine since February 24, but the first from Kyiv. In early April, Windrose Airlines (7W, Kyiv Boryspil) ferried out one of its ATR72-600s, while in September, Wizz Air (W6, Budapest) managed to extricate one of its A320-200s. Both aircraft were evacuated from Lviv to Poland. Lviv is located in western Ukraine, considerably closer to Polish airspace.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, there are currently 52 aircraft stored at Kyiv Boryspil airport. While most of them have been grounded there since well before the invasion, 15 were active through February 2022 (including six aircraft operated by Ukraine International Airlines, three each by Windrose and Azur Air Ukraine, and one by each of SkyUp Airlines, AeroJet (Ukraine), and Ukraina Air Enterprise). A further five have been stranded since February at Kyiv Igor Sikorsky, including three A320s operated by Wizz Air and one B737-400 each operated by Jonika Airlines and Tarco Aviation.
