On 11 September 2015, the Government of Georgia published an annual work report with one of the chapters dedicated to the development of local and international flights (p. 45). The report states that various airlines have started operating in Georgia, including Yanair, Air Arabia, Air Cargo, Air Astana, Elinair, Dart and Borajet. Pegasus and Belavia have started their flights from Kutaisi.

FactCheck

took interest in the aforementioned issue.

The Ukrainian Yanair entered the Georgian market in 2014 and offers flights to Kyiv from two Georgian cities – Tbilisi and Batumi. According to the information of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia, a total of 3,174 passengers have used Kyiv-Tbilisi-Kyiv flights in 2014 whilst about 7,467 passengers were transported using the Kyiv-Batumi-Kyiv route. Apart from the Ukrainian capital, Yanair offers flights from Batumi to Odessa as well.

Tbilisi has become the 100^th

destination for the low-budget Arabic Air Arabia which started to operate on the Georgian market on 28 October 2014. The company is owned by the United Arab Emirates and offers regular flights to numerous countries of the world. After entering the Georgian market, it started offering flights on the Sharjah-Tbilisi-Sharjah route.

Air Astana is a Kazakh airline which started operating on the Georgian market in 2011. It has provided its services to over 120,000 passengers since entering the market, offering flights from Tbilisi to Almaty. The airline added a new destination, Tbilisi-Astana, from 2 June 2014 which operates twice a week from Tbilisi International Airport.

A low-budget Greek airline founded in 2013, Elinair, started

 offering flights from Tbilisi International Airport to Thessaloniki from 9 June 2015. This is the only route offered by this airline on the Georgian market. Tbilisi-Thessaloniki and Thessaloniki-Tbilisi flights operate once a week. Overall, Elinair flies to 30 different destinations.

The Ukrainian low-budget Dart airline started offering charter flights to Georgia from 31 May 2015. The airline transports passengers from Kyiv to Batumi with flights being operated for a limited period of time during the tourist season. Batumi is included in the airline’s list

of resort destinations. According to the permit issued by the State Aviation Service of Ukraine, Dart flights will be offered only until 24 October 2015.

Information of the Georgian Civil Aviation Agency indicates that the Turkish Borajet airline has been authorised to offer regular flights from Batumi to Istanbul since 4 September 2015. The Turkish company is mainly occupied with offering local flights and this will be its first destination in Georgia.

The aforementioned annual work report also lists those airlines which started their flights from Kutaisi. One of them is the Turkish Pegasus Airlines which started flights from Kutaisi to Istanbul from 19 May 2015. Pegasus has been operating on the Georgian market for five years already. It offered its first international flight from Tbilisi International Airport in 2010. Flights from Kutaisi to Istanbul are offered three times a week with the minimum cost of the ticket at EUR 30.

The Belarusian Belavia airline flew its first flight from Kutaisi to Minsk on 28 May 2013. Kutaisi has become the third city after Tbilisi and Batumi from which the airline offers regular flights and, therefore,was included in the previous year’s annual work report. Travellers can use the services of the airline three times a week from Kutaisi International Airport with the average cost of the ticket at EUR 300.

Conclusion

Despite certain inaccuracies in the Government of Georgia’s annual work report (for example, Air Astana is named among the airlines recently entering Georgia whilst in reality it has been operating in Georgia since 2011 although adding a destination last year), in general, the facts given in the document are correct. The airlines mentioned in the report have indeed recently entered Georgia or are expanding the number of their destinations.

Hence, FactCheck concludes that the information in the Government of Georgia’s annual work report about foreign airlines operating on the Georgian market is TRUE.