The bad weather conditions in November-December 2005 proved that just the “Armenia” international airport alone slowed down flights in Armenia. While giving a report on the activities in 2005, the head of the Civil Aviation department of the government Artyom Movsisyan discussed this issue.
“True, Gyumri’s airport conditions were not good, however, during those days we managed to transfer the flights to the “Shirak” airport,” said the head of the department. He said that he had proposed a project to the president of Armenia and the government a couple of days ago, asking for extra investments to be made to the “Shirak” airport. The department foresees some reforms, including VIP services, building escalators, improvement of aviation, etc.
”We want to turn “Shirak” into the number one alternative airport so that foreign airplanes do not refrain from landing at our airport the same way that many planes did during the days when there was heavy fog by landing in Tbilisi,” said A. Movsisyan.
He also touched upon the “Armavia” airline company. Let’s recall that the former share-holder of “Armavia” and current owner of “Sibir” sold his shareholding to the Armenian side.
“But I was not in favor of that and I didn’t sign because “Sibir” has to pay 1 million dollars to the government each year and they have not paid yet this year. As a member of the government, I will not sign anything until the money is received. I am doing this so that we will not have problems later on,” said the head of the department. “Armavia” must add more countries to its list of flights. According to A. Movsisyan, there are flights provided to “Armavia”, but the company is not using them. Based on the contract, the company can not use them for a while, but can not transfer that right to another company.
In regard to some issues, A. Movsisyan talked about the transfer of cargo and improving the quality of passenger service.
“We still haven’t been able to solve this problem. The people working at the airport have to learn to hand the passport to the passenger nicely, not throw it at them,” said the head of the department.
K.T.