YEREVAN. – Our view is not that our government should create an airline and give it a status of national carrier. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday stated this at his meeting with lecturers and students at the Yerevan State University Faculty of Economics and Management.

“We are now in discussions with Corporación América company that has assumed the management of [Yerevan’s] Zvartnots and [Gyumri’s] Shirak [international] airports. We also jointly try to find out what problems we have—[and] where,” he noted. “The second direction is as follows: we are now closely examining the [preceding Armenian] government’s decision by which the open skies policy was declared [in the country]. We are trying to find out to what extent this decision is in line with our [Armenia’s] requirements today and our needs in the future. We are trying to earnestly analyze to what extent our relations with other partners are in line with the standards which ICAO has defined.”

Pashinyan stressed that the government’s actions should not cause shocks.

“I agree: having local air carriers is a matter of strategic importance to us [Armenia],” he added. “[But] we must create the opportunity for all local carriers so that new companies will be able to appear in that arena.”