It’s impossible to imagine the airplane flights without flight maintenance managers. A pilot operates the plane, a flight dispatcher gives the direction, and a flight maintenance manager gets the flight permit. Karine Sargsyan, who is a flight maintenance manager in Air-company “Armenia”, revealed the 40 years’ work, told about getting into aviation and about her family in her talk to “Armenpress”.
What does the Flight maintenance manager do?
No aircraft will be able to fly until we have the permit. For example, for the flight from Yerevan to Lyon (our regular flights), at first we need to receive the flight hours: the receiving airport needs to give the landing, and then the return flight hours. The next step is to request permit from the French aviation authorities, after which I check the countries that are on the way, because during its flight from Yerevan to Lyon, the airplane flies over the air space of Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany, getting to France. We also receive permits from our Civil Aviation Committee. Only after all these procedures, the aircraft will have the right to perform a flight. Afterwards, we provide information to all the services of “Zvartnots” airport that the air-company “Armenia” is preparing for the flights.
There are special criteria for which we receive the flights permits. We submit all the needed documents, beginning from the state register to all certifications to the relevant bodies and the countries where we will operate the flights. They check them, after which they give the permit. The pilot needs to know all about these documents because during his flight, getting closer to the border of any country, the dispatcher requests his name and surname, the flight and permit numbers.
For the regular flights we receive the permit for one season at once
There’re season timetables in aviation. The summer season begins from March 29 and lasts till October 24. In case of regular flights, we get the permit for the whole season at once, although they are done separately for charter flights.
I’ve studies in the faculty of Computer engineering
I’ve graduated from the faculty of Computer engineering of Polytechnic University. I’ve been working in the sphere of aviation since 1981, but I my work was a little different then. At the time there was a center for computer engineering where we were processing data on electronic computers, performing various calculations. I did that work till 1994, then began to work in the “Armenian Airlines” air-company as a flight maintenance manager. I worked in the “Armenian Airlines” till 2006, after which I moved to “Armavia” where I worked till the bankruptcy of the company in 2013. I’ve been working in “Armenia” air-company since 2014.
I Appeared in Aviation by Chance
The director of the “Armenian airlines” air-company saw me in the corridor of the Center for computer engineering, stopped me and asked if I knew English, what meant “CFM” to which I answered that it was the verb “confirm”. He immediately offered me to work for them, but I didn’t agree. Without my knowledge, he had agreed with my director, prepared the order and since then I appeared in aviation by chance.
Me and my husband studied in the same faculty
Me and my future husband studied in the same university and the same faculty. But he had also studied in the aviation college in Riga, where he had received two specialties of a pilot and radar switches. In USSR there were referrals: he was transferred to work in Yerevan. At the time he decided to study and entered the Polytechnic University, where we met. We studied together in the same faculty for 6 years. My husband has worked in Aviation since 1972, having worked as a pilot for 3-4 years, after which started working with his second specialty- the radar switches specialist. He retired in 2013.
My daughter also works in aviation
My daughter was born in 1980, studied in the Faculty of Sociology and Philosophy of Yerevan State University. In spite of her profession, she also appeared in aviation. There was the “British Airways” office in Yerevan. She started working in their mission in “Zvartnots’ airport. Then the direction was closed, and my daughter found another job in “Etihad Airways” that operated Abu Dhabi-Yerevan-Abu Dhabi flights. After a while, this direction was closed, and my daughter received an offer to move there. Now she and her husband work and live in Abu Dhabi. She is the representative of the air-company in the airport.
I’d like my daughter to get my profession
Few people in Armenia have my profession today. I’ve had students in different air-companies, but today they live and work in other countries. I’d like my daughter to get my profession too, because I think that it’s rather interesting and few people have the professional skills.
Interviewed Lilit Demuryan
Photos by Hayk Manukyan