Aviacompany Armenia has been granted permission to fly to 17 international destinations from Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport.

The company, which received an operator’s certificate this past February, can now operate two way flights from Yerevan to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Rostov on Don, Krasnodar, Mineralnye Vody, Samara, Kiev, Prague, Frankfurt, Brussels, Rome, London, Bologna, Dubai, Tel Aviv and Tehran.

According to protocol, the certificate is open-ended and includes specific conditions and restrictions.

As we’ve already written, on April 21, Aviacompany Armenia Ltd.  operated a codeshare flight with Georgian Airways to Tbilisi. (Georgia Airways reps Tamaz Gaiashvili and Robert Oganesyan own 25% and 24% respectively in the Armenian company.)  This is probably a charter flight that needs special permission. But we were unable to find any information on it.

We stress this because we have given an example showing that the newly created Armenian company is operating, at least for now, through Georgian Airways that flies passengers from Armenia to Tbilisi and from there to other destinations.

The first passengers on the early evening Aviacompany Armenia flight from Yerevan to Tel Aviv actually left Tbilisi for Yerevan on Georgia Airways flight A9 1789. The Armenian company rushed to claim that flight as one if its own, declaring that its maiden flight to Tel Aviv was a success.

On the departures announcements board at Zvartnots Airport the only flights showing for Aviacompany Armenia from Yerevan go to Tbilisi. There is no mention about the 17 destinations noted above.

Surprisingly, on the arrivals announcements board, Aviacompany Armenia shows it flies to Yerevan from Tbilisi and Tel Aviv. How can it have a flight from Tel Aviv to Yerevan if it has no outgoing flight to Israel?

For there to be a minimum of one weekly flight to each of the 17 listed destinations, Aviacompany Armenia Ltd. would have to possess at least two planes and one reserve, sixteen pilots and an in-flight crew of thirty, says a Hetq source with years of aviation experience.

In March, Tamaz Gaiashvili stated that by early April the company would have three leased aircraft, another two by the summer, and eight by the end of the year.

In reality, Aviacompany Armenia is content to book seats in planes owned by Georgian Airways.