OD720 From Lebanon, joined Feb 2003, 1919 posts, RR: 36 Posted (10 years 1 month 1 week 4 days 10 hours ago) and read 1924 times:
Armenian Airlines will be ceasing operations tomorrow April 15 leaving 1600 of its staff and 320 pilots unemployed.
The Armenian government will be transferring the operational rights of the state carrier to Armavia for the next 10 years, which is owned by Russia's Siberia Airlines. European destinations to be operated by Armavia will include AMS and FRA. It is rumored that Armavia will start operations to LHR sometime in the near future which was previously planned by Armenian Airlines for June 2002 but was dropped due to the difficult situation it was facing.
On the other hand, Armenian Int'l Airways will continue its services to CDG and has succeeded to take over the rights of few other destinations from Armenian Airlines including Athens, Beirut, Kiev and St Petersburg.
I'm sure, Scotty will have more details available soon.
In another news, it was anounced on Saturday that Yerevan's Zvartnots airport (EVN) will have a new terminal (rather a building) soon. $100m will be spent in the next 8 years by an Argentinian company, Aeropuertos de Argentina, for the modernization of the airport. It is planned to create a large duty free zone around the airport too.
The presentation with computer graphics animation I saw of the airport was quite impressive.
PW100 From Netherlands, joined Jan 2002, 1983 posts, RR: 10 Reply 1, posted (10 years 1 month 1 week 3 days 23 hours ago) and read 1585 times:
Hmmm, judging on the number of views of this thread, I'm probably not the only one who mistakenly read American Airlines.
Anyway, best luck to all invloved.
PW100
PS. Is Yerevan Zvartnots the same airport as Yerevan Zapadnyy? I have seen some old renderings of the new terminal [mind you, this was 1980 or so], which just looked absolutely stunning! Circular terminal with a large and very estetic tower/restaurant complex in the middle, capable of handling 20 million pax.
Immigration officer: "What's the purpose of your visit to the USA?" Spotter: "Shooting airliners with my Canon!"
USAIRWAYS321 From United States of America, joined Jul 2001, 1806 posts, RR: 10 Reply 2, posted (10 years 1 month 1 week 3 days 23 hours ago) and read 1556 times:
No, PW100, you aren't the only one. I almost had a heart attack! As above, best of luck to those unfortunate employees.
OD720 From Lebanon, joined Feb 2003, 1919 posts, RR: 36 Reply 3, posted (10 years 1 month 1 week 3 days 23 hours ago) and read 1553 times:
Hi PW100,
You are right about the airport but it's definitely called Zvartnots.
That terminal though was only designed for handling domestic flights in the former USSR and currently is being unable to handle international flights efficiently. So unfortunately that beautiful building will be closed after about 14 months, still the new company responsible for the airport is not sure what to do with it.
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