Europeans to Manage Armenian Aviation Market Following Blacklist

After the update on June 2, all airlines certified in Armenia have been added to the European Aviation Safety Agency's (EASA) blacklist. This means that Armenian airlines will be prohibited from operating flights to Europe. Notably, this flight ban also extends to charter flights, meaning that during the summer, no airline registered in Armenia will be able to fly to Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, or other vacation destinations.

Initially, the flight rights of only two airlines to Europe were temporarily restricted, allowing these airlines to provide additional evidence to confirm their safety levels. However, as became evident from yesterday’s announcement, the necessary work had not been adequately performed, which is why our airlines ended up on the blacklist.

Ultimately, what are the underlying reasons for this situation? How did we arrive at this day? Who is responsible in the sector, and what consequences might arise? To discuss these questions, the 'Hayots Ashkharh' newspaper spoke with the former head of the Civil Aviation Administration, Shahen Petrosyan. 'The violations were related to flight safety, and this has been going on for a long time, since the times of Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan,' he noted. According to Petrosyan, warnings about all this have been in place for a long time, and these are 'fake' airlines. 'Tatevik Revazyan has not been aware of what has happened in the past and has not exercised oversight. Her fault lies solely in this. It is actually the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to determine how these airlines were registered and operated.'

So what does this mean? Since Armenian carriers have been stripped of the opportunity to fly to Europe, Europeans are bringing their airlines to Armenia, currently represented by low-cost carriers like 'Wizz Air' and 'Ryanair.' As experts have voiced, this indicates the destruction of the Armenian aviation market. Europeans are taking over the Armenian market, but it remains unclear whether we will ever have a national carrier again.