Armenia PM admits failure to establish national air carrier

PanARMENIAN.Net - The partnership project between the state and the private sector to establish the airline Fly Arna has failed, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Wednesday, March 20, answering questions from deputies.

On January 29, 2024, Fly Arna announced the suspension of flights, and on March 19, Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures of Armenia Armen Simonyan declared about the suspension of the airline’s license due to the lack of aircraft.

According to Pashinyan, the project was approved during the pandemic.

“At that time, a number of large airlines, including low-cost airlines Ryanair and Wizzair, temporarily stopped flying to Armenia,” the Prime Minister said.

In this regard, Pashinyan noted, the government decided to create a partnership project with a large foreign carrier. However, then, when market conditions underwent some changes, and other companies, including several local ones, entered the market again, Fly Arna could not withstand the competition.

The Prime Minister said there are no optimistic prospects for the continuation of the project.

Fly Arna is the national airline of Armenia, a joint venture of the Armenian National Interest Fund (ANIF) and the Air Arabia Group. The low-cost airline was established in July 2021, began operations in the spring of 2022, flying to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Novosibirsk, Tbilisi, Sharm el-Sheikh, Baghdad.