Turkey continues to ban, without any substantiation, Armenia-registered planes from entering its airspace for transit flights.

Ankara initiated the ban on September 9, 2020, 18 days before Azerbaijani military forces attacked the Republic of Artsakh.

Turkey, however, allows planes registered in Armenia to enter its airspace if they conduct flights to Turkey (for example, Yerevan-Istanbul-Yerevan).

Hetq wrote about the ban in August 2021 (Turkey Bans Armenian Aircraft from Entering Its Airspace; Yerevan Hasn't Responded in Kind).

Armenian government aircraft was also banned from transit flights through Turkish airspace from July 2020 to March 2022.

On April 25, 2023, after the opening of the Nemesis Operation monument in Yerevan Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced the ban of Armenian airplanes traveling through Turkish skies to third countries.

The monument commemorates those who participated in the 1920s 'Operation Nemesis' program tasked with assassinating Ottoman officials who perpetrated the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Later, Çavuşoğlu stated that the ban also applies to aircraft carrying Armenian VIPs, meaning the Armenian government airplane that serves the prime minister, president and other high-ranking officials.  

Despite this ban, on May 31 that year, a delegation led by Armenian PM Pashinyan left Yerevan for the capital of Moldova, Chisinau, to participate in the second summit of the European Political Community. While leaving and returning to Yerevan on the night of June 1, 2, the plane carrying the delegation went through the skies of Turkey and Romania.

This flight followed two made by Pashinyan that bypassed Turkish airspace.

At the time, Pashinyan said the Nemesis monument was erected by the Yerevan Municipality and not his administration. On May 28, 2023, Pashinyan congratulated Erdogan on his re-election as president. This gesture, it seems, was sufficient for Turkey to lift the ban.

The ongoing Turkish ban on Armenian aircraft flouts the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, according to which each member state of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) cannot apply a discriminatory approach to the use of its airspace. That is, if for some reason a restriction or ban on the use of airspace is applied, it must be applied to aircraft of all other states regardless of their origin.

Turkey has also banned planes with Armenian registration and those leased by airlines in Armenia.

According to internationally accepted procedures, information about prohibitions or restrictions on the use of airspace is published through an aeronautical information package of the given state (in this case, Turkey), but Turkey does not publish such information (NOTAM) because, as stated, it cannot discriminate against a specific state aircraft. Yet, this is what has been happening for the past four years.

Further proof of this is what happened yesterday.

An Ethiopian Airlines’ Boeing 777F cargo plane (Ethiopian registration: ET-APU) flying from Liège, Belgium to Yerevan, and passing through the airspace of Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, entered the airspace of Bulgaria, from where it was supposed to enter Turkish airspace on the way to Yerevan (flight number: ET 3584).

As seen on online flight tracking websites the plane circled the skies of Bulgaria several times and, not receiving entry permission from Turkey, turned back to Vienna, where it landed before returning to Liège.

The cargo was then shipped to Armenia and Georgia via Russia.

Of note is that while the plane’s flight plan allowed it to traverse Turkish air space, that country’s aviation authorities changed their mind while the plane was in the air.

Armenia’s Civil Aviation Committee (CAC) told Hetq that the Ethiopian cargo carrier had all the necessary permits, but Turkey at the last moment banned it from entering its skies. The CAC had nothing more to say about what happened.

Ovsanna Stepanyan, director of the Armenian Hayways cargo airline company, told Hetq the Ethiopian plane was mainly loaded with consumer goods bought online by buyers in Armenia and Georgia. The Ethiopian plane was supposed to transport the cargo to Yerevan and return. The portion of the cargo destined for Georgia was to be transported to Tbilisi by the Boeing 737-400 plane of Hayways (RA registration: EK-HAY).

Thus, Turkey prevented the entry into its skies not of a civilian or state aircraft with Armenian registration, or an aircraft operated on a lease basis by any Armenian airline and registered in the territory of a third country, but of an aircraft that was just transporting cargo from Europe to Armenia.

Needless to say, because of the Turkish ban, the Hayways Yerevan-Tbilisi flight did not take place yesterday either.

Stepanyan believes Turkey wants to prevent any competition to its national air carrier Turkish Airlines, which will transport cargo from Europe to the South Caucasus, particularly to Georgia.

Accordingly, although the Turkish Airlines does not fly to Armenia, it is quite active on routes from various points to the Caucasus. Stepanyan also notes that Turkey does not have the guts to obstruct the Frankfurt-Yerevan-Frankfurt freight flights of the German Lufthansa Cargo company, a European giant, that operates every Sunday.

Despite yesterday's Turkish obstruction another Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 777F cargo (Ethiopian registration: ET-AVT) took off from Liège today and reached Yerevan via Russia (flight number is the same: ET 3584).