Armenian Airlines (1991)

[citation needed] Profitable until 1997, Armenian Airlines began a decline in 1998 which executive director Arsen Avetisian blamed on the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

But following tightening of environmental regulations, these Ukrainian and Russian-built planes were banned from landing in European airports because they did not meet emissions and noise standards.

But some foreign agencies doing business in Armenia said they could not get life insurance for employees who flew on old Russian planes due to the aircraft history of problems.

The Airbus, then, became the European link for the "official airline of Armenia".Armenian Airlines faced disruption on its European operations following an engine failure on its sole Airbus A310 on January 21, 2002, which caused a Yerevan-Paris flight to turn around mid-air and return to Zvartnots International Airport where the crippled Airbus landed safely (previously, on September 14, 2001, and after taking off towards Paris CDG had the same engine failure returning to Zvartnots where all the emergency means had been activated, after four hours of waiting the flight to Paris was authorized to take place with the IL -86).

On January 28 of the same year, representatives of Armenian Airlines visited London to discuss means for getting the Airbus repaired.