FlyOne Armenia: It is impossible to avoid Turkish airspace when flying to west

It is impossible to overfly Turkish airspace when flying to the West because of the current geopolitical situation, which puts pressure on the airline's activity.

FlyOne Armenia's Chairman of the Board Aram Ananyan said this at the meeting with the journalists on June 5, Caliber.Az reports quoting Armenian media.

He reminded that Turkish aviation authorities cancelled the permission for Armenian airlines to fly to Europe via their airspace.

"We are trying to do everything to keep prices affordable," Ananyan noted.

Türkiye on April 29 closed its airspace to low-cost Armenian airline FlyOne Armenia without warning, the domestic Armenpress news agency cited the carrier's board chairman as saying, according to Reuters.

"For reasons incomprehensible to us and without any visible grounds, Turkish aviation authorities cancelled the permission previously granted to the FlyOne Armenia airline to operate flights to Europe through Turkish airspace," said Aram Ananyan, FlyOne's chairman.

"Turkish aviation authorities implemented the cancellation without prior notification, putting our airline and our passengers in an uncomfortable situation."

FlyOne Armenia, a subsidiary of Moldovan airline FlyOne, began operations in December 2021. In February 2023, Ananyan told Armenpress that the carrier had five Airbus aircraft and offered flights to 14 destinations in eight European and Middle Eastern nations.

Ankara has not had diplomatic or commercial ties with Armenia since the 1990s.

The two nations are at odds primarily over the 1.5 million people that Armenia says were killed in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor to modern Türkiye. Armenia says this constitutes genocide, a charge Türkiye denies.

But in February, a border gate between the neighbours was opened for the first time in 35 years to allow aid for victims of the devastating earthquakes in southern Türkiye.