RUSSIAN CARRIERS USING AZERI SPACE TO FLY TO ARMENIA DUE TO GEORGIAN CRISIS

Haykakan Zhamanak
Aug 28 2008

Armenia

"Over Azerbaijan"

It emerged yesterday [27 August] that over the past 20 days, Russian
air companies have been carrying out flights from Russian cities to
Armenia via the Azerbaijani air space and not via Georgia as usual.

The spokeswoman for the Armenian Civil Aviation Department, Gayane
Davtyan, confirmed to our correspondent the change of route from
Russian cities to Armenia. She said that air companies choose
their routes on their own and that it is not dangerous to fly over
Azerbaijan.

Russia’s Aerflot representative in Armenia, Tigran Nersisyants,
told our correspondent that back on 8 August, one day after the
Russian-Georgian confrontation began, the Russian agency for air
transportation sent a letter to their air companies recommending that
beginning 9 August they "should not carry out flights over Georgia
and temporarily use other routes, taking into account the current
limitations.