YEREVAN (RFE/RL)—A Ukrainian investment fund announced the purchase of a 49 percent stake in Armenia’s leading airline on Friday, pledging to help restart soon its commercial flights that were suspended two months ago.
Vladimir Bobylev, the chief executive of the East Prospect Fund, pledged to invest at least $30 million in the troubled Air Armenia carrier. Armenian news agencies quoted him as saying that it plans to replace and expand the company’s small fleet of aircraft in the coming months.
It was not clear how much the fund, registered in the British Virgin Islands but headquartered in Kiev, paid for the minority share. It valued Air Armenia at $50 million on its website.
Air Armenia specialized in cargo shipments by air until Armenia’s flagship airline, Armavia, went bankrupt in April 2013, leading to the full liberalization of the Armenian civil aviation sector. The small carrier took over some of Armavia’s flights later in 2013.
Air Armenia halted the flights to a dozen destinations in Russia and Europe in late October as a result of a financial dispute with Russia’s national air navigation service. It accused the Rosaeronavigatsia agency of scaring away its customers with false statements about its outstanding debts. Aviation experts believe that the company also struggled to compete with much larger Russian airlines.
According to Bobylev, Air Armenia is currently undergoing restructuring and should be able to resume flights in March. “I would like our fund to be presented not so much as a new Air Armenia shareholder but as an investor,” the Arka news agency quoted him as telling a joint news conference with Arsen Avetisian, Air Armenia’s director and main official shareholder.
“We have understandings on $30 million [in investments] for the first phase of operations but won’t confine ourselves to that figure,” he said.
On its website East Prospect presents itself as a fund manager specializing in “problematic assets.” Its investment portfolio, estimated at $2.5 billion, mainly consists of mining operations in Ukraine.
Air Armenia CEO Arsen Avetisyan said the airline will resume flights in 2015 March. He said the airline is working now to bring back two its planes which are in Amsterdam for an overhaul.
He said the agreement with East Prospect Fund was signed December 12 and now it owns 49 percent in Air Armenia. The remaining 51 percent belong to the CEO.
According to Arsen Avetisyan, in 2015 the airline will operate five aircraft to make flights to Thailand, China and some other destinations.
In late October, Air Armenia decided to restructure its finances and change the flights schedule after seeing an 80 percent drop in air tickets sales. In a statement in late October Air Armenia blamed the dramatic drop on a ‘panic’ among investors and customers after Rosaeronavigatsia, a Russian federal air navigation service, said the Armenian airline had huge outstanding debts.
Air Armenia began operating commercial passenger flights in 2013 after the bankruptcy and liquidation of Armenia’s national air carrier Armavia.
So sad that we can’t even get a national airline up and running to encourage more travel to Armenia at reasonable prices.
It just keeps on coming. This is the latest effort by the West to shove aside the bear and rescue Armenia from bondage. With the Ruble in a rubble, now is the perfect opportunity to unite and give Armenia the true prosperity it deserves. The days of tyrannical regimes propped up by artificial $110 oil is over. A new dawn of true cooperation and mutual respect is on the Asbarez !
What is going on here? Invest from Ukraine? Ukraine needs investment itself. Armenia gets help from Ukraine while entering into the union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. What a mess.
This is a disgrace to us all. What kind of people are we if, we cannot operate a single God damned airline? Cannot we, the diaspora, help? We blab a lot but, do not deliver much!
If it is going to be the diaspora’s job to build roads, build schools, maintain an airline, what exactly is the government doing and what is it there for?
Put two and two together: we don’t have an airline because our oligarch government doesn’t care about opening Armenia up to the world. This and countless others are solid examples of corruption hindering Armenia in every aspect.
Is this a joke? Ukraine is broke! They got themselves in such a hole with the Nazi coup d’etat last winter. They don’t even have electricity in the capital city.
“Broke Ukraine” at least has the competence to operate a national airline. See what you can learn from others before talking them down and dismissing them.