AS-SALAAM-ALEIKUM: GREETING IN AZERI ON ARMENIA-BOUND PLANE CAUSES PANIC AMONG PASSENGERS

NEWS | 10.02.15 | 14:15

If you are an Armenian passenger on board a plane outbound from Moscow
– hopefully to Yerevan – the last thing you want to hear is a greeting
in Azeri.

But this is exactly what Armenians on Aeroflot’s SU Flight 1866
yesterday heard from their captain as the aircraft was getting ready
for a takeoff.

The Zhoghovurd newspaper, citing its sources, says the greeting in
Azeri caused a real panic among ethnic Armenian passengers of the
Russian airline’s flight some of whom thought it was a deliberate plot
and that the plane would take them to the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.

Luckily for them, the whole incident proved to be a case of
misunderstanding, for which, however, as the Yerevan-based paper
claims, no one has offered apologies to the Armenian passengers.

This is not the first case when Armenians flying on board the Russian
airline hear the crew address them in Azeri. A similar incident
happened on December 8, 2013, but at that time it was during the
landing in Moscow.

More serious incidents involving complex relations between Armenians
and Azerbaijanis, two South Caucasus neighbors who fought a bloody
war in the early 1990s and remain divided over Nagorno-Karabakh today,
also happened in the past.

As recently as December two flight from Kyiv to Tbilisi operated
by Ukrainian airlines were diverted to Yerevan because of bad
weather conditions, bringing a total of about four dozen citizens of
Azerbaijan to the Armenian capital. All of them were treated well and
were provided with all services at Zvartnots Airport and, according
to the Armenian side, left Yerevan “satisfied”.

In 2002, a Moscow-Yerevan flight with many Armenians on board had to
land in Baku because of inauspicious weather conditions in Armenia.

The Azeri side then provided tight security for the plane that left
the Azerbaijani capital two hours later.