LUXEMBOURG
A Luxembourg operator which recently featured in the pages of CBW has donated eight surplus buses to help in Ukraine. In the presence of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Mobility François Bausch and Anne Calteux, Representative of the European Commission in Luxembourg, Voyages Emile Weber announced the donation in December. With the help of logistical support of the Ministry of Mobility and the European Commission, the donation was made as a response to a request from Olena Zelensky, the First Lady of Ukraine.
After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, numerous means of transport were mobilised to transport army troops as well as for the evacuation of civilians in the war zones. In order to provide continued school transport for thousands of students, Ukraine identified a need for 3,000 buses. This need was substantiated by a request forwarded by Olena Zelensky, the First Lady of Ukraine, as part of her international commitment to Ukrainian education at an informal meeting of European transport ministers in April 2022.
The Luxembourg Ministry of Mobility forwarded this request to operators association the Fédération Luxembourgeoise des Exploitants d’Autobus et d’Autocars (FLEAA), and Voyages Emile Weber responded by offering eight buses. The transfer of the vehicles was scheduled for late December. The Irisbus Arway and MAN Lion’s Regio buses have a capacity of 50 to 70 seats, and have been delivered to the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk.
Earlier on in the conflict, the company provided eight coaches to transport refugees to host families or to the emergency facilities set up at the time, an initiative that came from volunteer drivers within the company. “Our company has over 1,800 employees from different countries, including Ukraine. It was these people who volunteered and originally offered their support to help others – people who were fleeing. The donation of these eight buses is therefore just another step in our commitment and we are proud to support the Ukrainian people in this way to bring school transport back into service,” said Project Manager Cyrille Horper.
