Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport experienced record downfalls in flights and passenger volume in 2020. The reasons are obvious. In the first nine months of last year, air travel was affected by the coronavirus epidemic, and in the last quarter, the war against Artsakh merely exacerbated the slump.

In 2019, the main air gate of Armenia was able to exceed the threshold of 3 million passengers a year and, according to the concessionaire, Armenia International Airports CJSC, transported 3,021,608 passengers. (Armenia’s Civil Aviation Committee (CAA) registered 3,048,859): In 2020, according to the CAA, only 790,827 passengers used Zvartnots. The difference is more than 2.2 million, a huge number for Armenia.

As seen in the chart below, the airport's performance in the first quarter of last year was in the range of recent years, although there was a steady decline since the beginning of the year. The biggest downturn was registered in April, when a state of emergency was declared in Armenia on March 16 and the country's borders were closed. Afterwards, although the flow of passengers increased very slowly until September, the war that broke out on September 27 created new obstacles for tourism. However, we must note that flights to Armenia continued during the war. After a slight decrease in passenger traffic in October-November, a traditional increase was registered in December. It should be noted, however, that the monthly number of passengers using Zvartnots since March has not reached 100,000.

Unlike a concessionaire company that also includes mail volume in cargo transportation data, the Civil Aviation Committee shows only the weight of cargo delivered and imported through the airport. While the volume of cargo transportation through Zvartnots was 18,069 tons in 2018 according to the CAA, and 19,511 tons in 2019, last year it was 15,733 tons.

There are also differences in how flights and landing figures are portrayed. The concessionaire shows them separately. (In practice, it happens that there are more flights than landings, or vice versa. For example, at the end of the month or year the plane arrived but did not leave, or it left and did not return. Thus, when summarizing the period in question, the two indicators differ). Meanwhile, the CAA counts one flight and one landing as one flight-landing.

According to the Civil Aviation Committee, 11,580 take-offs and landings took place in Zvartnots, and in 2019 - 13,260. Last year, that number was only 4963. In the chart below shows that the number of flights started to decrease since March, and the lowest rate was recorded in April. Moreover, since March, the number of flights has not even reached 500 per month.

Naturally, the fewer flights and landings, the fewer passengers and cargo.