Your trusted source

The closure of the Lars road, which is the only route linking Armenia to Russia, has resulted in sharp growth of the air tickets. In the course of previous years, 5 and 10-20 percent rise in prices of the tickets has been observed, yet this year the airline tickets grew sharply, in certain cases reaching 120 percent, Babken Pipoyan, Chairman of Informed and Protected Consumer NGO, told Panorama.am.
According to him, the flight prices from Yerevan to Sochi have risen by 120 percent, which is explained by exclusively the closure of Lars road.

Pipoyan put the blame on the government for the occurred situation, suggesting statements on the open sky policy have brought no positive change thus far.

“Apart from that, we have no national air carrier, national schemes are not worked out to regulate the prices,” Pipoyan outlined the problems.

“If we had a national air carrier, we would probably tolerate the absence of mechanisms for price regulations. Furthermore, the latter would have been tolerated if we had serious business environment, open sky, yet in this situation the mechanism for regulating the prices appears to be a necessity,” stressed Pipoyan.

To him, Russian air companies which hold monopolistic position in the Armenian market, made use from the current situation, through arbitrary raising the prices for the tickets.

“The RA State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition should take the lead in regulating the sphere, which is again, should have been the last tool to be employed. People stuck in Lars from all of us see the states the only body to provide assistance and regulate the prices,” Pipoyan said, adding consumers are unable to protect their violated rights by themselves.

“This is one of the unique cases when the consumer should rely on the state protection. We should face the problem through awareness-raising,” noted the expert, highlighting that not only the citizens but the state suffers from the situation as well.  

Chairman of Informed and Protected Consumer NGO next referred to the fact that Armenians, who work in Russia, prefer to return to the motherland in summer by car for vacations, and that the state should be interested in ensuring people spending money in Armenia.

“Many people preferred not to visit Armenia by car due to the closure of the Lars road, while the air tickets were too expensive. The money needed for the air tickets for four people is as much as for the expenses of the whole vacation to taker in Armenia. Let me bring one example. I know several wedding parties have been canceled since relatives invited for the events couldn’t rich Yerevan due to transportation costs,” Pipoyan said

To remind, no state body has commented on the price growth of the air tickets so far.