Civil Aviation Agency rejects “unverified and baseless” TV report on Russian oligarch-owned aircraft landing at Tbilisi Airport

Georgia’s Civil Aviation Agency on Saturday rejected as “unverified and baseless” a report by the opposition-minded Formula News outlet that claimed earlier during the day an aircraft owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Evgeny Giner had been allowed to be parked at the Tbilisi International Airport “for nearly a month now”.

The Agency said the CRJ 200 transport jet that had landed at the Airport on March 25 was registered to the Malta-registered Blue Square Aviation Group, and had obtained a valid permit to land at the airstrip for technical maintenance.

The Georgian state body said it had issued the relevant permit for the servicing of the aircraft by Georgian Airways, adding the jet had landed in Tbilisi after its flight registration documents had requested the landing for resting the crew at a midpoint between its origin of Yerevan, Armenia and the destination in Trabzon, Turkey in advance.

Although the aircraft had been scheduled to depart for the destination on March 26, the Agency said it had remained under maintenance by Georgian Airways at the Tbilisi Airport. The body said the information on the specific technical works being carried out on the jet could be verified with the latter company or with Maltese authorities.

In its comments on the report that originated the controversy, the Agency said Formula News had requested information on the aircraft, but eventually gone ahead with its claims on its ownership despite a response supplied by the state body. It also accused the outlet of having a “habit of baseless sensationalism” and said it purposefully avoided informing its viewers of responses from state authorities, with the aim of “deliberately misleading” the public.