France, Civil Aviation Committee of Armenia sign technical  cooperation agreement

ArmInfo. France signed an agreement on technical cooperation with the Civil Aviation Committee  of Armenia. Ambassador of France to Armenia, Olivier Decottignies,  informs on his account on Twitter (X).

As part of the agreement, the French side will support the civil  aviation sector of Armenia in the context of the adoption of European  standards.

"Safety, reliability, economy, air navigation, sustainable  development," the diplomat wrote.  Since June 2020, all airlines  registered in the Republic of Armenia  have been included in the EU  flight safety blacklist, which means  they do not have the right to  enter the EU airspace for commercial  purposes.  This was due to the  discovery of deficiencies related to  flight safety as a result of  European inspections carried out by the  Civil Aviation Committee and  a number of Armenian airlines. This  means that the presence of weak  air safety mechanisms in airlines  registered in Armenia and the  Civil Aviation Committee that controls  them has forced the EU to  impose a temporary ban on flights of  Armenian air carriers, since  the EU considers them not to meet  European flight safety standards.   The air safety blacklist,  officially called the EU Air Safety List,  consists of two annexes.  Appendix "A" includes those airlines  activities of which in the skies  of the EU are completely  prohibited, and Appendix "B" includes  airlines for which the ban  applies only to specific aircraft. Armenia  is included in Appendix  A. This means that all Armenian air carriers  are prohibited from  entering EU airspace. The European Commission,  based on the opinion  of specialists from the EU Air Safety Committee  (ASC), periodically  updates the blacklist. The committee is headed by  the European  Commission itself, and is assisted by EASA - the  European Aviation  Safety Agency. The list was last updated on November 23 last year. It  included all eight airlines registered in  Armenia. 

In March of this year, Deputy Chairman of the Civil Aviation  Committee of Armenia Stepan Payaslyan said that there was serious  progress towards lifting the ban on flights of Armenian aircraft to  Europe. Civil aviation of Armenia has carried out large-scale work  with partners from the European Union. Over the past two years, more  than 40 deficiencies reported by the European Union Aviation Safety  Agency have been almost completely corrected.