I keep noticing a new face in the game; Vertir Airlines, of Armenia, founded last year has been flying routes from the UAE into Afghanistan. Not much information has been available, but we know a few things; the only known aircraft, Antonov An-12 EK-12221, serial 7345201, is the old ER-AXE, which flew for the now-banned Aerocom, Viktor Bout and Tomislav Damjanovic’s Moldovan airline that had an An-26 seized for cocaine smuggling in Belize, and its brief Australian subsidiary Air Bridge Group. (As a source told this blog – what can they have been moving from South-East Asia to Australia that needed an aircraft with air-drop capability?) More recently it’s been with Air Armenia, regulars on the Baghdad and Bagram runs.
Tonight, Vertir flight VRZ981 left Sharjah at 2313 GMT with destination Edinburgh; with a cruise speed of roughly 415mph, and a distance of about 3,620 miles, they should get there about 0800. Interesting, no?
Interesting. Here in Armenia, the impression of Air Armenia is that it mostly gets by doing maintenance and repair work… Armenia is geographically good for that, being a quiet spot midway between Europe/Russia and the Middle East. Lots of underemployed mechanics, no waiting.
But Armenia would also be a good place for doing, um, stuff.
Doug M.