Liverpool fans face soaring air fares for Champions League final in Kiev

Flights to Kiev are heading above £1,000 return, but a great escape via Hungary can cost just £200

As Liverpool celebrate their narrow victory on aggregate over Roma, fans hoping to attend the Champions League final against Real Madrid in Kiev on Saturday 26 May are encountering soaring air fares.

From north-west England to the Ukrainian capital on the day before the final, returning the day after, one-stop tickets which do not require a risky “self-connect” between budget flights or a very lengthy journey are now priced above £1,000.

Because Real Madrid have already qualified, Spanish fans have been buying up flights with many of the usual connection points, such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Prague, Vienna and Istanbul. As seats become scarce, fares spike.

Turkish Airlines is quoting £1,411 return from Manchester via Istanbul to Kiev, with both journeys involving an overnight stay at the Turkish airport.

From the London area, fares are lower but journeys are also protracted: the online agency Opodo is quoting £893 for an 11-hour outbound journey from Heathrow via Rome on Alitalia, and a nine-hour inbound trip via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines.

One fan, Steve Williams, told The Independent: “I have followed my club all over Europe for 30-odd years and I’m fed up with the travel companies raising costs for specific events.”

After substantial research The Independent has identified what appears to be the optimum strategy for a budget trip.

It begins with a road journey from Merseyside to Luton airport and a flight to a neighbouring country: Debrecen in north-east Hungary, where Liverpool played a Champions League match in 2009.

Flying out on the Thursday before the match, returning on Sunday, the fare from Luton to Hungary’s second city is £159 return on Wizz Air.

The outbound flight arrives in Debrecen late at night, but the airport is only two miles from the city centre, with plenty of good-value accommodation.

The following morning, a fast, cheap train (80 minutes, about £5) runs to Zahony on the Ukrainian border.

Touts outside the station offer transport across the border, but a much more economical option is to make the one-mile walk across town to the border checkpoint.

The frontier is defined by the Tisa river, but unusually pedestrians cannot walk across the bridge. Instead, Hungarian border guards advise travellers to hitch-hike, and will sometimes assist in securing lifts.

Fans should be able to arrive in the pretty Ukrainian frontier city of Uzhgorod in time for a good lunch and an exploration of this former Austro-Hungarian outpost.

The Pavljuk bus for Kiev departs at 6pm, taking 12 hours to reach Kiev, for a fare of around £20. Arrival should be at 6am in the capital on the day of the match. Resting rooms are available in the main railway station, which is also where baggage can be stored.

The Olympic Stadium is two miles from the station.

Coming back, fans will have about 80 minutes after the final whistle (assuming extra time is not played) to get from the stadium to the station. An overnight sleeper train departs at 10.51am. The excellent new Ukrainian Railways website shows plenty of room in the second-class sleeper section for just £7 one way

After a marathon 15-hour journey, the train arrives in Uzhgorod at 2.25pm on Sunday. At the station it is best to negotiate for a taxi across the Hungarian border, with the aim of reaching Zahony in time for the 4.13pm fast train back to Debrecen. Assuming it arrives punctually at 5.51pm then a 10-minute cab ride should deliver fans to the airport in good time for a pint before the flight to Luton.

Arrival at the Bedfordshire airport is scheduled for 9pm on Sunday, when the roads should be clear for a three-hour drive to Liverpool. Excluding the journey between Merseyside and Luton Airport, the total transport cost should be around £200.