“Sonny, let me have some rest, I have just landed. Let me check where I am”,- the old man was trying to refuse.
“You have arrived in your motherland, grandpa, and there is nothing to
check out here. You are going to the city, aren’t you? Give me ten
dollars and I will take you there. Here you can take only our taxi and
the taxi of “VIP” service, and there are no more transports here”,- the
driver didn’t want to leave this passanger go.
“Give me my bag please, I want to have a walk, then I will decide how to go”,- insisted the old man.
“Hey man! Where are you going? Where is the money for the cart service?
I am not a free carrier for you”, – cried the bag carrier from the back
side.
The old man couldn’t understand where he was. The bag carrier had
already managed to take some tip from him, and the driver pushed him
into the car and they left. The carrier told us, that he had taken 5
dollars from him just for 15 meters bag carriage. And the information
the old man had got was, that he could go to the city only by the cars
of “City Cab” and “VIP” taxi services. And he couldn’t even be asked
whether he wanted or not.
Each passanger arriving in Armenia gets into this kind of
situations at Zvartnots airport. There is no choice. There is an
unofficial rule, which is like a rule in the territory of the airport.
The cart service payment is the invention of the argentinians. One cart
without carrier costs 400 dram, and with the carrier costs 1200. And in
case you carry the cart to your car, you have to pay 2500 dram. And if
your bags are more than three, you have to pay more 150 dram for each
more bag and then you are free to go. The operation of other taxi cars
is prohibited in the territory of the airport. One of the free taxi
drivers said: “every day they take one of us, beat, and don’t let us
work here”. We were also informed, that the brother of the minister of
justice has his share in these taxi services business.
This kind of calculations are also made for the parking service
there. When entering the territory of the airport, the drivers get a
cheque informing when they entered the district. The drivers have the
right to stay in the territory of the airport for free only for ten
minutes. For one hour they have to pay 400 dram, and for the whole day-
2000 dram. It doesn’t matter if the driver had to wait there because of
the flights delay or some other reasons, he still has to pay. We were
informed, that the parking business is rulled by someone being the head
of a service department of the airport. We couldn’t find out more
information, only we wandered, that he was called as “black paper” in
that district.
The rules inside the terminal are more horrible. It doesn’t
depend whether you want or not, but still you have to pack your bag for
1200 dram each, and in order not to die of thirst, you can buy 0,5 l of
water for 500 dram. And if you manage to buy a bottle of brandy or a
souvenire, it will already turn out, that you have good money with you.
And if you have dinner when waiting, this means that you are an
oligarch or a minister relative. In any case, we were explained in this
way.
And the prices are so expensive, because the owner of the
airport, Ernekyan, has decided to make the service standards in
complience with the international standards. Of course, they started
this process from the prices: they ask big sum from the people, making
economical activities on their territory. I.e. they say the territoriy
was rented by NA MP Ashot Aghababyan, and he stated this kind of
payments there: 100 USD for 1 sq.m., and twice or three times more
expensive prices for ticket sales and currency exchange points. Also
the ground handling services are very expensive: the prices for
grounding and other services. The oil price is being increased
day-by-day. Only the passanger pays for all this. The air catering is
very expensive. Some say, that the price for the air catering is about
the 25-30 USD in the ticket price, and it doesn’t matter whether you
eat or not, anyway you have to pay. Of course these things are agreed
with the representatives of Ernekyan. By the way, they make much
advertisements of Viva Cell at the airport. They didn’t know about the
USD price increase in the city and they worked with the old prices:
they bought 1 USD for 452 dram and didn’t sell at all. One of the
passangers tried to inform the worker of this point. The worker
answered him: “Go to exchange your money there, it is like this here”.
And at the registration desk a lady was trying to explain to the
workers there, that his bag weighted 19 kilos, she had weighted it
twice at home to make it sure. The airport scales weighted it 22 kilos
and the workers asked her to pay for the extra two kilos. The passanger
paid, not understanding which one of those scales were wrong.
But the prices of the drug store in the airport territory were
low for this place. Also the prices for hairdressers’ services were
down in comparison with the prices in Yerevan.The hairdressers said,
that their clients are the employees of the airport, which are not able
to pay more. As we saw, the modernization planned by Ernekya, has
applied only on the field of the prices: they increased them. But a new
terminal is being built. The construction-makers say, this is the new
investment of Ernekyan. But we think, that this is done on behalf of
the passangers money.