Introduction: Of the Fine Art of Booking a Seat on an Armenian LCC
This is the third segment of a trip to Georgia and Armenia, complicated by the fact that:
- the initial plan included going to Azerbaijan as well
- relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are difficult
- relations between France and Azerbaijan have become difficult
Hence this routing, the genesis of which is described in the introduction to the FR of the CDG-AMS flight (to be read, read again, and commented upon, of course! :) :
Flight routing
- 1
- 2
- 33F584 - Economy - Tbilisi → Yerevan - Boeing 737-300
- 43F583 - Economy - Yerevan → Tbilisi - Boeing 737-300
- 5A3897 - Economy - Tbilisi → Athens Airbus A320
Tbilisi – Yerevan is only 180 km as the crow flies, but still nearly 5 hours by road, plus the border crossing, a journey that no one seems to do, because I hardly saw any Armenian cars in Georgia, or vice versa. There is also the night train: an 11 hours trip, with 12 intermediate stops, including a one hour stop at the border, around midnight on the way in and around 4:30 am on the way back, which means in short, the guarantee of not sleeping.
The other solution is flying which is very expensive given the distance, with only one flight per day (or rather per night), operated either by Georgian Airways or by FlyOne Armenia.
FlyOne Armenia is a hard LCC whose sales process meets the rules of the genre: an obstacle course in order to avoid the multiple extra charges, requiring to avoid selecting, or to untick in a box to be found somewhere on the screen. It is also on the infamous black list of airlines banned from the European airspace.
What is this €4 Baggage guarantee which was inserted into the invoice?
3F has the nerve to try to charge this insurance also to my wife who will only have hand luggage, which, like on any hard low-cost, is of minimal size and weight.

Select your seat? That will be 10€ minimum (but more on exit row or in the front of the aircraft). For a very short night flight, we will do without it

3F also sells:
- being among the first to be notified of a schedule change (which is not at all hypothetical)
- being automatically checked in at STD-24h (instead of doing it yourself online, which is actually very easy)
- to be compensated "up to 100€" in the event of a delayed or cancelled flight,
- travelling with our pets (the rate is actually 70€, but 3F would like us to travel with one each^^)
This screenshot shows that by default, the options "priority warning of schedule change" and "compensation for delay » are pre-selected

Oh yes, 3F also discreetly adds a 5€ charge to receive information by SMS. That too you need to untick yourself (just like the information by email).

Did I mention the “schedule change early warning” option? This is not hypothetical, and FlyOne Armenia is not talking about minutes:
On May 30, over two months before departure, I received this email, announcing a horrendously rescheduled flight:

In the absence of a plan B, what could we do other than inform our Armenian friend that he would have to wait for us in EVN in the middle of the night? He knew his country's airlines well enough to not be upset about it…
… and good thing he did not, because on September 30, i.e. 6 days before the flight, I received this email that rescheduled the flight again to a more acceptable time, although two hours later than initially planned:

An unexpected catch
Then comes online check-in, and again the offer to pay to choose a seat.
Have you noticed that the seat layout has changed? The 30 rows of a standard A320 have been replaced by 23 rows, including incomplete ones.

The flight was not going be operated with an aircraft of FlyOne Armenia, admittedly an unusual airline for French travelers, but one that you can buy tickets from.
The reason for the original rescheduling was an aircraft maintenance issue, and FlyOne Armenia had eventually chartered this flight both ways to Tbilisi Airways, a confidential Georgian ACMI airline which has only one aircraft: 4L-TBA, an ancient 737-300 that started her career in 1997 with British Midlands Airways. (BMI, as well as the five following owners of 4L-TBA, have since gone under: planes have a longer life expectancy than airlines!)
This is the very first Flight Report ever published in English on Tbilisi Airways!
This is 4L-TBA, spotted from the TBS terminal, on the day of our trip back to France.

The day of the flight was approaching, and since I had not paid for the choosing our seats, what would be the result of the lottery?
16A and 18C: FlyOne Armenia seems to apply the disreputable policy of deliberately separating their passengers to encourage them to pay for being seated together together. But I had a window seat (or rather I took the window seat assigned to my wife!), and she had an aisle seat which was OK for her… and we coud be separated during a 50’ flight!

TBS landside
Arrival on the evening of departure at the rental car park; returning had been much faster than its collecting it

Part of this car park is public: this British vehicle has be driven for at least 4,500 km to get here !

This parking lot overlooks the tarmac slightly; it is technically possible to walk up to the fencing to avoid having it in the foreground, provided you do it quickly enough, otherwise you risk seeing a police car appear (on the tarmac side) expressing clear disapproval. I didn't waste my joker for this Lufthansa A320neo whose only interest was to authenticate that LH serves TBS.

The GeoSky 747-200

Shot from the fencing: 4L-GMC, one of the two Georgian Airways 767-300ERs. If you want to know everything about her twin (4L-GTR), I recommend you to read this FR (in French).

The end of the terminal, lit by the setting sun

Or, more precisely, the end of the Departures building, because the terminal in TBS is split into two neighboring parts, with, in the direction of the road traffic, first the Arrivals building

.. and then the much larger Departures building

The car rental companies are at the end of the Arrivals building closest to their parking, but we of course go to the Departures building.

Landside

The FIDS was alternating between Georgian…

… and English, and it was still too early to check our luggage. In any case, our flight was not already displayed as being delayed, unlike the two flights to TLV.

As for eating landside, there was only this miniature food truck, with blatantly inflated prices

But if you took the trouble to go outside, just in front of the terminal, there was this shop with much more decent prices.

These khachapuri (cheese buns) are quite stuffy, but they did the job

Beyond that, this closed and mainly empty building is the airport’s terminus station, served by only two trains, one in the morning and the other in the evening!

These photovoltaic canopies were financed by a Japanese institution

Back to the terminal: these USB ports were unpowered, but the 230V outlets were powered.

A very long line stretched into the terminal, reaching its full depth

This was the line for checking in for URC flight CZ6040, operated by a 787. Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang (for the Chinese) or East Turkestan (for the Uighur independence fighters), is the hub of air traffic between China and Central Asia. Buses of Chinese tourists had apparently arrived well in advance.

The check-in counter for our flight to EVN opened: we did not need to wait much

The Marathonluggage is checked in

… and I received an old-style BP, whose left part was going to be detached at the boarding gate

Going upstairs

The Fast track was not much of an advantage, because there were not that many passengers

There is only one lounge at TBS, that we didn’t have access to (but this already referenced FR will tell you everything about it!)

It was hard to ignore that TBS is operated by ADP – the operator of the airports in Paris and a number of cities abroad

There was even an ad here for the Paris Olympics, which had been a few months earlier!

Airside at TBS
The security check and the border control did not take much time and we then went through an unavoidable but not invasive, duty free zone

Georgia stands out as the country where wine production was attested earliest in Antiquity, and wine exports continue to this day.

A catering area, empty due to the current time

So was this playground for young children

Despite the time, these rest seats were unoccupied

… because a sizeable part of the terminal was actually quite empty

These not typically Georgian fast food outlets, located quite close to the exit from the security chek, were attracting a limited number of customers

Just like these smoking rooms


The toilets were clean, did not have the stench of the landside ones, and displayed these instructions from the Covid times on the fine art of washing hands in a hospital environment still in place (like in the the toilets of my company!).

This workspace and the power sockets at the background are reserved for customers of the café located beyond the picture’s edge on the right…

But if you searched a little, it was possible to find power sockets accessible to all (the USB sockets were unpowered, though)

Night plane spotting
TC-JYB, a Turkish Airlines 737 MAX 9

Camex Airlines737-800

It had been 20 years since Airzena was renamed Georgian Airways, but the livery of this 737-800 had not been updated yet

4L-GID, a Georgian Airlines 737-800 in white livery

4L-MWC, the only Myway Airlines 737-700. They also operate a 777-200ER

The GeoSky 747-200

China Southern’s 787 leaving to URC

China Southern Airlines is written from left to right 中国南方航空, but Chinese is usually from front to back on a vehicle: Chinese is a language which is as easy to read when written from left to right or from right to left.

Arrival of 4L-NIK, a Georgian Airways 737-700

No surprise: the boarding gate for our flight was downstairs…

FIDS

…Gate 202. The staff who had been at the check-in counter was now at the boarding gate

This kakemono placed in a corner of the terminal did not display much hope from ADP to raise TBS to the top of the Skytrax rankings.

Boarding started

The PAXbus was there

Azimuth Sukhoi SuperJet 100

Boarding: the cabin of Tbilisi Airways’ only aircraft
The PAXbus dropped us off next to the aircraft, too close to be take have it entirely in one shot

The staircase slightly interfered with the framing of the name on the fuselage

The Tbilisi Airways logo on the tail fin

Fuselage shot, with the company name in whole

… and with the left engine

The door opened 180°, like on all 737s

First glimpse of the seats

There was no Row 13 in this aircraft!

Surprise! At 28 cm (measured from the edge of the seat to the seat of the preceding row), the pitch is in the very high range in short / medium haul economy class.

No surprise with the width between armrests: it is less in a 737 than in an A32x

The front safety card – both sides

The safety card states that nylon stockings are prohibited in the event of an emergency evacuation. This intrigued me and I found sources dating back to the last century which taught me that at the time, there was concern that friction on the rough surface of the emergency slides could result in burns. Still, I can’t imagine passengers starting to take off their tights before evacuating in such circumstances, not mentioning the flight attendants managing an evacuation)!

The back of this seat betrays the acquisition of this aircraft by Boliviana de Aviacion in 2016 (thanks airfleets)

The seat back can recline by about 7°, which is acceptable for the passenger behind, given the generosity of the pitch.

Old-fashioned air vents

The flight was nearly full

Very short night flight
4L-UKA, and 4L-GEK behind her, the two Georgian Wings 737-300s, the former with reactors hooded…

… but not the second, perhaps in operation.

The CZ 787 for URC was reaching the runway in the background.

End of pushback

Ready to leave !

Take-off

The glow of the edge of the agglomeration of Tbilisi

Gamarjveba

Arrival at EVN
The plane had barely reached its cruising altitude (if “cruising” could apply) that when the start of the descent was announced: the flight was to last barely more than half an hour. A view of both sides of EK-5HC, one of the two 737-500s of Shirak Avia, an Armenian airline which serves Russian destinations only.


Deplaning

RA-73716, an A321ceo Aeroflot

A last look at 4L-TBA

The queue for immigration is long, as another plane had obviously arrived shortly before us, but moved quickly, as off-screen to the right, all 18 immigration booths were in operation and an employee efficiently directed the passengers to the both which had has one waiting passenger left.

A quarter of an hour later, we walked though the duty free zone

Luggage claim area

To be delivered here

Thirty minutes after the touchdown, and twenty minutes after we had deplaned, the Marathonluggage appeared: nothing to complain about

All we needed to do was to go airside, where our local friend was waiting for us.
Bonus : a glimpse at Armenia's cultural heritage
The goal of this trip was to discover Armenia, and flying on Tbilisi Airways was an (unexpected) bonus
The goal of this FR is to share with you this flight on Tbilisi Airways… but there is a bonus on Armenian heritage
Very rare to see FRs on airlines I haven't heard of before, this was an interesting read! Thanks for sharing!
I had never heard of that airline either, before I realized the change of aircraft.
Thanks for the comment !
It seems like they don't even have a functioning website, very minor airline indeed
Given the aircraft swap, the tricks on their websites and the frequent changes of your departure time, you can't say that they did their utmost best to give you a once-in-a-time experience flying FlyOne 😄
It may well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, indeed, and good thing there are other airlines for reaching these otherwise very friendly countries.
Thanks for your comment !
Thank you for sharing your flight report on this obscure airline! We actually flew the same route last April. Before our flight, we made the drive from Yerevan to Tbilisi, which was incredible—so many interesting sights along the way.
After a few days in Tbilisi, we flew back to Yerevan to catch our Lufthansa flight. Coincidentally, just like you, we received a notification from FLYONE two days before our flight about a delayed departure—same delay as yours, funny enough! Unfortunately, the new schedule left us with no time to connect to our Lufthansa flight, so we ended up booking a flight on Georgian Airways instead.
To our surprise, when we arrived at the gate, an Air Dilijans 737-500 was subbed in—a nice bonus! Too bad you weren't able to take a daytime flight, the views along the way are beautiful. Overall, it was a fantastic trip.
Thanks for sharing your experience ! Flying with Flyone seems to require significant flexibility; future readers be aware !