Tuesday, August 4 2015 10:42

 The Armenian authorities keep holding consultations on air transport optimization. On Aug 3 deputy minister of Economics of Armenia Sergey Avetisyan received heads of air carriers operating in Armenia. 

The ministry press office has informed that the meeting was attended by the Deputy General Manager of the "Armenia International Airports" CJSC Andranik Shkhyan, representatives from the General Department of the Civil Aviation and State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition of Republic of Armenia.  

During the meeting the possibilities of changing the night flights have been discussed. The sides highlighted the importance of providing favorable conditions for tourists arriving in Armenia.  

According to the representatives of the airlines the night flights are comfortable for transit flights as in the case of changing the flight times the passengers will have to wait for a long time in the airports for the next flights.  

As a possible solution, the sides have discussed the possibility of additional daytime flights, which the representatives of the airline companies will discuss with their head offices.

To remind, the foreign air carriers' representatives in Armenia are not going to reduce the ticket prices. They raised that problem during the July 23 consultation with the leadership of the Armenian General Department of Civil Aviation (GDCA). The heads of the representative offices said that they would tell their organizations' head offices about that problem. They are also skeptical about the GDCA's recommendation to replace the nighttime flights with daytime ones.     

To note, Armenia has started harshly criticizing the so-called "open skies" policy, which has actually made a number of foreign air carriers leave the market. The market is gradually being monopolized by Russian and Ukrainian companies.  As a result, the tickets are gradually rising in prices. Moreover, most air carriers set nighttime flights to Yerevan, which creates additional difficulties for the tourists. In addition, the high tariffs make most Armenian passengers use the air services of neighboring Georgia. These issues have recently been discussed at a consultation with the prime minister of Armenia. 

Observers say it is strange that these issues are tackled by the GDCA that is actually correcting the mistakes of the Armenian Economy Ministry, which is to regulate the aviation policy of the country.