Azerbaijani Side Must Have Paid Fees. The Civil Aviation Committee Remains Silent.

The newspaper "Hayots Ashkharh" reports that after a whole day of writing and deleting, the Civil Aviation Committee finally deemed it necessary to address the topic of an Azerbaijani aircraft traversing Armenian airspace yesterday, at the end of the workday. This aircraft belongs to one of the Azerbaijani airlines and crossed into Armenian airspace in accordance with the "Open Skies" agreement signed several years ago.

In reality, Armenia's airspace has never been closed to Azerbaijan; rather, Azerbaijan itself ceased to utilize Armenian airspace back in 2013-2014 to avoid paying taxes for using our airspace.

The newspaper attempted throughout the day to clarify whether the Civil Aviation Committee has imposed any charges on the Azerbaijani side for allowing their airline to use our air routes. However, calls to the committee's office phone numbers curiously went unanswered. To our surprise, one of our calls was eventually answered by the Committee’s Secretary-General Mikayel Zalinyan, who, after hearing our question, decided that he was participating in some online training and neither confirmed nor denied our inquiry.

Later in the evening, the head of the Aviation Flight Suitability Department, Karen Gyurjyan, called our editorial office. "I saw missed calls and called back, but I'm not the one to address your question. I assume the issue of finances is being handled by 'HayAeroNavigation' LLC," he directed us.

It turned out that 'HayAeroNavigation' also lacked authorization from above to respond regarding monetary transfers. An employee identified as Sevak stated, "I have been forbidden to discuss this topic. No matter how much you try to obtain information, you will not succeed. The Committee must respond to that question."

We also learned that the Committee, through its media service, has no press secretary. After contacting Ms. Tatevik Revazyan's assistant, Lilit, she promised to check for an answer to our question and call back. As expected, she not only failed to return the call but also left our subsequent calls unanswered.

In an interview with "Hayots Ashkharh," aviation expert Navik Khachatryan explained that any airline flying through the air routes of a country makes payments for aviation expenses. "The amount is determined based on the aircraft's weight, the distance traveled, and some multiplier. 'HayAeroNavigation' receives the funds, which are then transferred to the budget by the Committee," Khachatryan elaborated.

It is likely that the Azerbaijani airline has paid specific fees for using the RA air routes as per established regulations, which, however, the Committee neither confirms nor denies. We hope that the organization led by the 'beautiful girl' Edmond Marukyan has received the appropriate financial transfers from the Azerbaijani side and has not merely shown goodwill by opening the airspace and saying, "come in here!" By the way, this is unprecedented, as the Armenian side is displaying goodwill toward Azerbaijan after the war while keeping secret the terms of engagement.

For more details, see today’s issue of the newspaper.