The Armenian “Taron-Avia” airline appealed to the RA State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition months ago, complaining about the differentiated pricing policy of Russian airports.

The RA State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition informs that according to the complaint, although Armenia and Russia are EAEU member states, the Russian airports consider Armenian carriers as foreign and apply higher prices to them for maintenance and other services than to local air carriers. This situation does not allow the Armenian airline to compete with the Russian ones with its price policy.

“Taron Avia” informed the Commission that the price policy applied to them by the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviation), which provides air navigation services, is also problematic. There are also differentiated approaches here, in particular, non-local companies in Russia are charged 95.2 dollars for air navigation service for every 100 km, while local, that is, Russian airlines pay about 3 times cheaper for the same service – 35 dollars for 100 km.

According to the Commission, the creation of unequal conditions at the airports for the airlines of member countries in the EAEU territory contradicts the principles and rules of healthy competition in the EAEU. As a result of such an approach, Russian airlines are able to gain a serious competitive advantage over Armenian airlines.

The created situation leads to the fact that, in the case of Taron Avia, the business operator who submitted a specific complaint, the destinations to various Russian cities considered as targets become uncompetitive for the company.

The latter incurs additional costs, which significantly affects the price of the air ticket. 

The commission discussed the issue for a long time with EAEU partners, involving them in the process, in order to achieve a quick and complete settlement of the issue. As a result of the work done, a schedule was recently set to remove the existing differential tariffs at all Russian airports within the next 2 years and review them. In other words, a unified decision on the equalization of tariffs was adopted in the territory of all member countries. It should also be noted that practical steps are already being taken and two airports operating in the territory of the Russian Federation have reviewed their tariff policies and differentiated approaches for Armenian airlines. are not available.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications adds that in our country there is no such difference in the prices of service and air navigation services for both Armenian and foreign companies, which means that air carriers of all countries have the opportunity to compete equally.