Georgian airline Georgian Airways has declared Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili persona non grata. The carrier will not allow him to board its planes in response to the boycott announcement, company director Tamaz Gaiashvili said. transmits Rustavi2.
Saturday May 20, Zurabishvili announcement boycott of Georgian Airways due to a flight to Moscow after the resumption of air traffic with Russia. She said the company is “taking advantage of the state to enrich itself” and wants to “take advantage of a new reality that is unacceptable to a very large part of our population.”
“I didn’t want to say anything about Madam President because she is a woman, but her completely irresponsible statement left me no other choice,” Gaiashvili explained.
According to him, the Georgian president “believes that by stopping the Georgian airline, it will destroy the Russian economy”. Commenting on Zurabishvili’s statement, the Georgian Airways director wondered why “millions of the Georgian budget are spent on aimless trips abroad by a woman who has never done anything good for Georgia from her life”.
“It’s ironic that Mrs Zurabishvili is still called president, just like (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan, who made Turkish Airlines one of the biggest airlines in the world and built the biggest airport in the region in Istanbul. I won’t do it again,” Gaiashvili stressed.
The head of Georgian Airways has promised not to let the country’s president board his company’s planes until she apologizes.
Georgian Airways is a private airline, 80% owned by businessman David Gaiashvili, and 20% by Georgia Air Service. The carrier has seven medium-haul aircraft on its balance sheet. Georgian Airways offers flights to Russia, Armenia, Israel, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Austria and Cyprus.
In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the visa regime for Georgian citizens and lifted a ban on direct flights to Georgia that had been in place for nearly four years. The first Moscow-Tbilisi flight after the resumption of air traffic on May 19 was operated by the Russian company Azimut. This event provoked opposition protests in the Georgian capital. The first reverse flight in four years – from Tbilisi to Moscow – was carried out on May 20 by Georgian Airways. From June, the Russian airline Red Wings will also start flying to Georgia.
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