“We are waiting, suffering and are patient. And we still can be patient. Back then the economy was growing. The economy was on the rise in the past and we could put up with this. Now the economy is down and we can’t get by anymore. That is why we are saying, either we declare bankruptcy or Zvartnots Airport lowers its tariffs by 25 percent,” during yesterday’s press conference mentioned the owner of Armavia Mikhail Baghdasarov when asked about the possibility of the strike and cessation of flights. He said his company was ready to halt its flights this week but decided to carry on with them for now after the airport management promised to officially respond to his demands by next Tuesday. The two sides will meet on that day discuss the situation, added the Russian-Armenian tycoon. “We said that we will flight but we won’t pay for service. Now we are not paying anything. We only pay for air kerosene 40 million AMD a day,” according to Radio Liberty, said the owner of Armavia. Let’s remember that on March 6, Armavia Airlines, stopped the Yerevan-Moscow and Yerevan-Rostov flights at 06:45 a.m. and announced that the flights had been terminated due to the high prices set by the airport. Moreover, as a result of the strike, the passengers of the mentioned flights have appeared in a quite complicated situation. The air company has advised the passengers to return their tickets to the tickets agencies where they purchased the tickets. Moreover, according to the passengers the agencies would charge them 20% of the ticket price. According to them they didn’t benefit from that. By the way, on the same day the Armenia International Airports made a statement, which read, “Apparently, the prices in Armenia and Russia are expensive for the airline company. Our company negatively assesses the groundless speculations on the part of Armavia Airlines and the false interpretations and regrets that the only transferring company is in such a situation. We also inform that the flights organized by all airlines are on time and uninterrupted. Moreover, according to the telegram received from Rosnavigatsia, due to accumulated debts, Armavia Airlines is prohibited from organizing flights to Russia and entering the aerial territory of Russia." On the same day at 2:30 p.m. Armavia ceased its strike. An explanation to this was provided by the Armenian airport, according to which Armavia has made an agreement with Rosnavigatsia. Yesterday we tried to receive some explanations from the spokeswoman of Armavia air company Nana Avetisova. The latter answered our questions in a written form. “It is not the first time that Armavia raises this issue to Zvartnots airport. They were saying when the construction is over there will be some discount but it didn’t happen. They raised the prices last time in December by charging us 2 Euros per passenger,” explained the situation the spokeswoman of the company. The latter denied all the claims that Armavia has issues with Rosnavigatsia. As a response to our question as to what deals were made with Rosnavigatsia, Avetisova said that there was no problem with Rosnavigatsia and that they only had problems with Zvartnots, according to which Zvartnots was supposed to give some privileges to Armavia. By the way, Baghdasarov publicized the debt they owe to Zvartnots 4,7 million Euro. As of the allegations that as a result of the cancellation of the flights the passengers stayed with no water, food or the tickets were not reimbursed, the spokeswoman of Armavia categorically denied them. “As of the passengers, yesterday all of them in three hours after cancellation received food and water. And anybody, who wanted to return their tickets, were reimbursed. However, after negotiations at 2:30 p.m. all of them were invited to board. The end of the negotiations will be on Tuesday but Armavia conducts its flights based on the regular schedule.” Let’s mention that the negotiations relate to the mediation of the Civil Aviation Bureau to facilitate the talks between the airport and Armavia. And when we asked whether Armavia owes anything to Zvartnots airport Avetisova responded, “Yes, there is debt but that’s a current debt and I am not competent to answer how much the amount is.”
Gevorg Abrahamyan, the spokesman of Armenia International Airports CJSC, referred to the statement published by their company on March 6 and said that the demand of Armavia to reduce the fees was not justified. “Yes, we claimed that what Armavia said was not justified and true. They were connecting their action with the fees of the airport but in fact they had problems with the Russian air navigation service, and the reason why they were not operating flights was the problem mentioned above, but they were saying that the reason is the fees established by the airport,” said G. Abrahamyan and added that Armavia was enjoying the fees established by their company. “Armavia is enjoying special fees, which is unfortunately confidential and I cannot say, but I assure that this is a special fee for Armavia,” said the spokesman of the company operating the airport. He also said that there had been situations when the airport stopped providing service to the national air carrier because of debts. He says that the air company still owes money to the airport, but did not specify how much. “I cannot say because it is confidential, but one thing I can say is that it is twice more than the permitted level. There is a certain level of debt which is usually agreed upon with the air company, and this is a debt that occurs permanently,” said Abrahamyan and added that the debt had occurred during the past 3-4 months. The spokesman of the airport did not exclude the possibility that the airport might stop providing service to the air company because of the debt. According to the mediator of talks between the two companies, the spokeswoman of the Civil Aviation Board Nelly Cherchinyan, they had decided to invite the both companies for negotiations because of the fact that the rights of passengers had been violated. In answer to a question concerning the process of negotiations and generally the functions of the Civil Aviation Board she said, “The CAB does not have any regulatory function because those are separate companies, but later during the negotiations it will be clear what the Aviation Board can do. At this point I cannot give any comment about the issue.”