Yerevan-Tbilisi Route Operator Fails to Serve Route

The Public Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition of Armenia has received a complaint from "Sona and Mikael" LLC regarding passenger transportation on the "Yerevan-Tbilisi-Yerevan" interstate route. This was reported by the commission's press service.

Specifically, the complainant stated that a competition was announced by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies on March 3, 2017, for servicing the "Yerevan-Tbilisi-Yerevan" route from the Northern bus station in Yerevan.

The company "Yerkou Enker" was recognized as the winner of the competition, which also serves the same route from the central bus station in Yerevan. The complainant reported that "Yerkou Enker" LLC has not conducted any passenger transportation from the Northern bus station in Yerevan since winning the competition. Thus, although "Yerkou Enker" participated in the competition and was recognized as the winner, they did not serve the route, causing harm to both passengers and the competing company, which claims to have been pushed out of the market.

During the investigation conducted by the commission, it was found that "Yerkou Enker" LLC was declared the winner with a three-year service agreement at a fare of 6500 drams per passenger.

Additionally, for servicing the same route from the central bus station in Yerevan, the same company was also recognized as the winner with a two-year service term at the same fare of 6500 drams per passenger. However, later, "Yerkou Enker" LLC voluntarily decided to conduct passenger transport only from the Central bus station. Results from the information received confirm that from April 2017 to October 2018, the company did not operate any flights from the Northern bus station in Yerevan.

Moreover, they conducted passenger transport towards Tbilisi from the Central bus station using the vehicles that were supposed to serve the route from the Northern bus station in Yerevan. This situation is also highly problematic, as according to the regulations on conducting interstate passenger and luggage transport by road, the vehicles used by the carrier during the bidding process are evaluated based on special criteria.

In reality, "Yerkou Enker" won the competition to service the route from the Central bus station in Yerevan by presenting specific vehicles, but actually conducted passenger transport with entirely different microbuses, which they had no right to do. This situation could lead to distortion of economic competition. The issue is that the vehicles of the competing "Sona and Mikael" company, which participated in the same competition but did not win, scored fewer points than those vehicles proposed by "Yerkou Enker" LLC that were not actually operated within the framework of the respective competition.

Thus, it turns out that although "Yerkou Enker" LLC was recognized as the winner to serve the Yerevan-Tbilisi-Yerevan route from the Northern bus station, they still did not carry out any flights, and furthermore, the vehicles declared in a winning competition were utilized to serve the route from a different bus station, which may lead to restrictions in competition and exclusion of other companies from the market. It is also worth noting that the competing company in the same competition offered consumers a more advantageous price of 4500 drams instead of 6500 drams.

Considering that although the raised issue indirectly negatively impacts the competitive situation, its regulation falls within the powers of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies of Armenia, therefore the problems revealed during the investigation will be presented to the ministry to ensure further actions.