YEREVAN, JUNE 25, NOYAN TAPAN. Over 500 employees of the "Armenian Airlines" company, declared as bankcrupt in 2004, claim to pay off their salary and benefit debts of about 340 thousand U.S. dollars, in general. Vladimir Poghosian, an ex-pilot of the "Armenian Airlines" company, told the journalists at the June 22 press conference that on June 21 Manuk Tophuzian, the Minister-Chief of the Government Staff, received them and offered to create a committee for the purpose of solving that problem and added that representatives of the Ministries of Justice, Finance and Economy, as well as ex-employees of the "Armenian Airlines" company will be included in that committee. In V. Poghosian's opinion, the government, which was the 100% shareholder of the "Armenian Airlines" company, is obliged to pay off their debts. He believes that the 314 million out of the 611 million drams, recieved from the sale of the property of the "Armenian Airlines", has been allocated to deaf pilots as a pension, and the rest of the sum "has disappeared." V. Poghosian is of the opinion that the issue of the non-paid salaries can be solved by selling the 26 hectare area of land belonging to the "Armenian Airlines" company in the territory of Sevan. He stressed once again that the "Armenian Airlines" has never worked with a loss: it has been declared bankcrupt artificially as the annual profit of the company made 5 million U.S. dollars.

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