Thanks Pete - My gut feeling is Armenia is a non starter. Whilst I appreciate that communications in that part of the world are sometimes difficult they would have committed themselves by now.
If there was any credible effort to start the route then they would have budgeted for marketing and advertising to tell the world they're about to launch a new route.
I also believe Air India will not bother with BHX, again if there was something about to happen then they would have said so by now - petition or not . Which leaves Emirates, the only loyal carrier serving BHX from the Middle East and beyond. Whilst Mahan Air have a limited market for their services their timekeeping is proving very unreliable. The rumblings of Pakistan going into deals with Turkish won't necessarily be a good thing because of the extra time it will take to get there. For now there is a direct service to ISB which takes around 7.30 hours, with a transit in IST then the whole flight could take around 10 hours or more. Not the way forward me thinks.
By the way what are the BHX marketing team up to at the moment? Anything exciting?