The French Ambassador to Armenia Jean-François Charpentier welcomed the journalists for press conference in Armenia and noted that 10 years ago Air France operated its first flight between Paris and Yerevan.
"This is a very important and symbolic moment, this flight is crucial for everyone," he said. The Ambassador admitted that he also uses the services of Air France, and that it is not a patriotic act but a matter of good service to its customers.
Air France-KLM Regional Manager Frank van ‘t Hof noted that he is pleased to be in Armenia and celebrate the 10th anniversary of Paris-Yerevan flight. "This is a very prominent event for Paris-Yerevan flight," he said.
The members of the delegation arrived by the first flight in 2006 with A320 aircraft were political and public figures, representatives of the business world, heads of French aviation and tourism. The guest of honor of the first flight was the legendary chansonnier Charles Aznavour, whose participation was widely covered by local and international media.
The company's Regional Manager pointed out that over the years they had made contributions to the aircrafts, have constantly updated and improved the services.
Over the last 10 years Air France has served more than 500.000 passengers between Paris and Yerevan. “We are happy to cooperate,” he said, emphasizing the importance of the narrow cooperation between the company’s Armenian partner Executive Travel.
To the question whether Air France would like to revise its service concept and operate as a budget carrier with low prices from Gyumri airport by the pattern of pobeda airline, Frank van ‘t Hof answered that they always study the market prices for each separate country taking into consideration the possibilities for its network extension.
The president of Executive Travel Agency Leon Bagdassarian noted that it is necessary to take measures and promote tourism in Armenia. "Air France already announced the winter discounts. We will offer 20-25% lower prices for travelers from Armenia to France and vice versa," he said.
To the question of tert.am of how profitable is the Armenian aviation market for the airline, especially considering that in recent years the Armenian Government has adopted the reform of the open sky policy, Leon Bagdassarian answered: "The advantage of the open sky policy was to grant possibility for other airlines to enter the market. This will stimulate the development of tourism and economy. A few years must pass in order to understand whether this policy was useful or not, adding that the negative aspect of this policy was that many Armenian airlines could not stand the competition, and were ousted".
He also added that this year Air France celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Paris-Yerevan flight together with the French Beaujolais Nouveau wine celebration. This world-famous holiday was first celebrated in Yerevan in 2010, then in 2013 - in order to give new impetus to the French-Armenian relations.
Today Air France operates to Yerevan 4 flights a week by the summer schedule and 2 flights a week by the winter schedule.
One of the leading global airlines, Air France, was founded in 1993. In 2004 the Air France-KLM group was formed, which operates 2200 flights daily, by its 352 aircrafts. Air France-KLM group offers the passengers flights to 320 destinations in 114 countries in the world.