Finding cheap flights to Ukraine and good schedules is a little more involved than flying from Atlanta to New York, Los Angeles, or Dallas. Have you ever searched Travelocity for flights from Wichita, Kansas to Volgograd, Russia or Lugansk, Ukraine? Don’t worry though, you can get there with a little guidance. [Note: Throughout this page I will refer to “Wichita” and “Volgograd” as random examples of smaller towns and airports… adjust as needed…]
Also, note that if you are flying from New York, Chicago, Atlanta, or Miami to Kyiv, Moscow, or Saint Petersburg, this process will not be as complex. You may even be able to find a non-stop flight. For everyone else…
First, the best way to find cheap flights to Ukraine, or anywhere for that matter, is through TripAdvisor. Surely Travelocity, Expedia, and the like, are better known, but TripAdvisor actually searches Travelocity, Expedia, and other travel sites, including those specializing more in international travel, like Vayama. By searching TripAdvisor, you are most likely to find the best prices and schedules.
[2019 Note: Add https://www.hipmunk.com to the list of great travel search sites. I find that the results (price and flight quality) similar to Trip Advisor, but to me the interface is nicer.]
So how do you get cheap flights to Ukraine (let’s say Volgograd) from places like Wichita, Kansas? Chances are slim that searching TripAdvisor for Wichita to Volgograd will yield any useful results.
The best way to explain the process for finding cheap flights to Ukraine (or Ukraine, but I’ll use Ukraine for now) from a small city like Wichita is through an example. Adjust your specific origination and destination accordingly.
Let’s say you are sitting in Kansas in late October looking at Ukrainian women websites and are ready for a trip to visit Volgograd for about two weeks starting in mid-January (Wednesday January 12th through Tuesday Jan. 25th). How do you go about finding cheap flights to Ukraine with workable schedules (minimum number of stops, reasonable layover times, etc.)
Your first step will be to check flights from the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport (ICT) to Volgograd International Airport (VOG). I used TripAdvisor and found that there ARE itineraries available (SHOCKINGLY!). But they are NOT GOOD.
The round trip is $3065 USD (all prices here will be after taxes and fees), the outbound flight has three stops (two of the layovers are NINE HOURS EACH) and takes a total of 35 hours, and the return flight has three stops and takes 30 hours. And maybe worst of all, you don’t just change planes in Moscow, you also change airports! That’s hard enough in New York… can you imagine trying that where no one speaks English! But not to worry… at least you’ll have nine hours to find your other Moscow airport for your last leg to Volgograd (that’s probably how long you’ll need!).
Now this is just a random experiment. You might do this search and find that the prices and schedules are better or worse than this, but this is a very realistic example of an EXPENSIVE flight with a HORRIBLE schedule that you will get if you don’t know what you are doing. Therefore it is a perfect example for me to show you how to find cheap flights to Ukraine with great schedules! You can easily cut this price in half and get far better scheduling.
First, you search for flights from Wichita to Moscow (or Kyiv if your smaller city is in Ukraine) for those same dates. In my run through this exercise I found round trip flights from Wichita to Moscow on those same dates (Jan-12 through Jan-25) for $918! And that’s with only 1-stop each way, 20 hours out and 17 hours back. There is a 7 hour layover in Atlanta on your outbound trip and a 2 hour layover in Atlanta on your return trip, but that’s not so bad. THAT is a cheap flight to Ukraine with a good schedule!
Now in all fairness, you’re still not in Volgograd, so how do you get there?
First let me say that the Wichita to Moscow schedule really works well because your Moscow arrival is scheduled for 11:00AM (the next day) giving you plenty of scheduling elbow room to get a flight from Moscow to Volgograd. The same is true of your return flight leaving Moscow on Jan-25 – it departs at 12:55PM leaving you enough time to get from Volgograd to Moscow in time. Keep these things in mind as you pick your itineraries.
To get from Moscow to Volgograd you go to Aeroflot (if you were planning domestic travel inside of Ukraine you might try KIY AVIA for similar results).
By searching Aeroflot I see that round trip flights from Moscow to Volgograd for Jan 13th (remember, you’re arriving in Moscow on the 13th, not the 12th) through 25th are $102 USD each way ($204 USD round trip), and are just two hour flights each way, and their schedules match almost perfectly with your needs. On the 13th you can fly from Moscow to Volgograd (in and out of the SAME AIRPORT) at 3:40PM, giving you 4 hours to get through customs and passport control.
For the return trip on the 25th there is an Aeroflot flight leaving Volgograd at 7:05AM and arriving in Moscow at 9:00AM – leaving you four hours to get through customs, security, and passport control before your 12:55PM departure.
So THAT is how you turn a $3000+, 65 hour round trip (total travel time) into a cheap flight to Ukraine… $1100, and 46 hours of total commute time, and with much more comfortable layover times.
Now I know that this is almost surely the best deal you’re going to get for flights from Wichita to Volgograd, BUT, there is one more iteration of this process that you may want to try if you want to try to improve a little further on your quest for cheap flights to Ukraine with great schedules. So far we’ve searched for flights from Wichita to Volgograd, then we investigated booking trips from Wichita to Moscow and then booking Moscow to Volgograd separately.
The last thing you can try is booking three legs separately instead of two. You could search for flights from JFK to Moscow, and then Moscow to Volgograd as we just did. But then you would also need to book your flight from Wichita to JFK separately. Sometimes you can save a little more time and money by doing that.
There is one other trick that can often make your cheap flights to Ukraine even cheaper. When searching for your “base flight” (just my term for the biggest flight… in our case, it will be the booking that gets you across the Atlantic), adjust the dates a little. For instance, instead of Wednesday January 12th through Tuesday January 25th, research prices and schedules for itineraries starting and ending a day or two earlier or later.
Sometimes a trip that leaves on a Wednesday and returns 11 days later on Sunday costs $1650 USD whereas if you left on Thursday and returned on Monday could be only $1100 USD, and may have better itineraries (less stops, better layover times, better arrival and departure times, etc.).
NOW do you see what I mean on other pages when I refer to cities that are easiest to reach? If you lived in New York City and wanted to meet women in Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Kyiv, this whole travel challenge practically goes away!
*** Reviewed/Updated March 2019 ***