Wizz Air's cheap flights from Armenia 'questionable' without government subsidies - economist

With the Armenian government not planning any subsidies for Wizz Air's recently announced flights, it isn't clear at all how the budget airline will generate its profit to make the collaboration with the domestic aviation authorities possible, according to an economist.

Speaking to Tert.am, Shahen Petrosyan cited Georgia's example as a successfu precedent, noting that the country offered subsidies to the Hungarian company as part of its efforts to develop tourism.

″Low-costers are like a lotto; after selling a certain quantity of cheap tickets they say all the tickets have been sold out. Ryan Air initially annoucned €35 as the initial price of air tickets, but they later turned out to above €100. So we will know the real price after the flights are launched; what matters to me is the possibility of flights from Gyumri. [The Russian budget airline] Pobeda too, announced 17 categories of prices, but they later to $60-$70 shortly afterwards in addition to the poor-quality service,″ he added.

The economist said he finds that low-costers' flights are positive only in terms of boosting competition with similar companies and increasing the number of flights to Europe. Petrosyan warned of the threats to the main airlines which he said may lose their competitive advantages due to the considerably expensive costs (despite the uncomparably higher quality services offered).

″The danger linked to low-costers is that they cannot permanently operate regular flights,″ he said.