UPDATE 30 Oct 2024:
- Turkey has reportedly started allowing bizav overflights heading to/from Armenia.
- This issue stretches back to May 2023, but Turkey dropped the restriction in Sep 2024.
- So if you’re heading to Armenia (UDYZ/Yerevan, for example), you can now overfly Turkey – you no longer have to route around the country or make a stop somewhere like UGTB/Tbilisi in Georgia.
Turkish Ban
Back in May 2023, Armenian airline FlyOne operating a Paris-Yerevan flight had to make an emergency landing in Chisinau after being denied entry to Turkish airspace.
Turkey reportedly applied this last-minute ban in response to a monument erected in Yerevan the previous week, which they were unhappy about.
Pretty soon after, FlyOne evidently managed to resume Turkey overflights, but it seems that this restriction was still informally applied to bizav overflight requests.
30 Oct 2023: FlyOne from Chisinau to Yerevan merrily overflying Turkish airspace again.
OPSGROUP Member Reports
There was no Notam published on this issue, nor anything mentioned in the Turkish AIP. But some operators made tech-stops in Georgia to fix the problem. In Oct 2023, two Airport Spy reports were received from OPSGROUP members, where they required a tech-stop at UGTB/Tibilisi (Georgia) before continuing on to UDYZ/Yerevan (Armenia) in order to overfly Turkish airspace:
Spy Reports
If you have managed to get a Turkey overflight permit for a flight heading to/from Armenia, please let us know! You can also reach us directly on news@ops.group, or file an Airport Spy report.
OPSGROUP members can access the full Airport Spy database via the members dashboard here.
Turkey or Türkiye?
Just a final note on this… In June 2022, the United Nations agreed to a formal request to recognise Turkey as “Türkiye”, as part of a rebranding campaign launched by the Turkish president.
However, no major media outlets have changed their spelling so far. So for now at least, Turkey remains Turkey.
More on the topic:
- More: Armenia-Azerbaijan Airspace Update
- More: Major Earthquake in Turkey
- More: Turkey, Syria and Iraq: Airspace Risk
- More: Cyprus: Risks in the Nicosia FIR
- More: Turkey: New rules for GA/BA flights
More reading:
- Latest: Dodging Danger: The Three Routes Through the Middle East
- Latest: US Pre-Clearance: How does it work?
- Latest: 2025 North Atlantic Plotting & Planning Chart
- Safe Airspace: Risk Database
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Another excellent tech stop is Batumi (UGSB), on the coast of Georgia. I used it this summer when denied a Turkish overflight enroute from Greece to Armenia. Super fast turn (open the door, close the door).