Syunik Airport is located east of Kapan, the sixth largest city in Armenia, and the largest city in the province of Syunik. The airport is currently under construction, and it plans to open in summer 2020. It will allow travel between Kapan and Yerevan in just 40 minutes in sharp contrast to the five hour drive. It will also serve other communities of southern Armenia and Artsakh.
History
The airport originally started as an airstrip in the 1940s receiving occasional flights operated bySovietAntonov 2 aircraft. However it was only officially opened in 1972 when scheduled air services commenced. In July 1971, it was decided that the city of Kapan was in need of an airlink to the capital Yerevan. However, due to the challenging topographical location of Kapan, the location was deemed too dangerous and the whole plan was cancelled. Following negotiations with the Soviet authorities and the Communist party, it was agreed that an Ilyushin Il-14 aircraft would be sent to test the airfield. In the following months, slight modifications to the runway and the installation of radio equipment were made, allowing the airfield to be operated with higher safety standards. By mid 1972, scheduled services commenced between Yerevan and Kapan. All flights were operated by Yak-40 aircraft. Operations at Kapan Airport were quite challenging, as the published approach was for aircraft to fly into the nearby Voghji river valley, descend under the clouds and perform a left turn to line up on the runway. However, this did not hinder operations, and Kapan Airport even saw 10-12 daily flights at times. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the subsequent Nagorno-Karabakh War, Kapan Airport fell into disrepair.
In 2013, talks to reopen the airport began between the governor of Syunik and businessmen from Armenia and abroad. Due to the dismissal of the then governor, negotiations died down, only to be restarted in 2016 and finalized in 2017, in time for the start of the construction. About 2-km long runway is widened to 40 m and a new passenger terminal is constructed. As of May 2019, over 800 million drams have already been invested in the project with the total budget set at around 2.3 billion drams. As of April 2020, about 2 billion drams have already been invested in the project with the total budget raised to around 2.8 billion drams.
Airlines and destinations
Flights of Atlantis Armenian Airlines to Yerevan are expected to start in summer 2020. Flights will be carried out with L-410 UVP-E20 airplane equipped with 17 seats and should cost round trip 40.000 drams, allowing easy access of tourists to southern Armenia and Artsakh.
