Montenegro”s Embraer fleet is growing
Montenegro Airlines says it is looking to up its UK services to thrice-weekly as well as apply for permission to operate from London Heathrow.
Speaking as the carrier launched flights this week between the Adriatic Coast town of Tivat and Gatwick, Montenegro transport minister Andrija Lompar also said that the government was looking to reduce its current 99% stake.
”We see the airline as a very important part of the Montenegro economy,” said Lompar. ”The government is ready to support the carrier for a certain amount of time but we want to see it self-sustainable and profitable.
”Montenegro Airlines is 99% State-owned and we do have a plan to privatise it in the future. Next year we will [also] apply for Heathrow [slots].”
And the carrier has ambitious expansion plans despite its relatively small home population of just 600,000, with a total of ten aircraft due to enter service by 2011. Currently, Montenegro Airlines operates five Fokker 100 and one Embraer 195 aircraft with a second 195 due to arrive for the next high season.
Now that Montenegro is in the European Union, several business destinations play an increasingly important role in the carrier”s schedule including Frankfurt, Zurich, Ljubljana and Rome, while last year saw services launched to Moscow and St Petersburg.
Bombing
Montenegro Airlines CEO Zoran Djurisc outlined just how challenging circumstances had been especially during the NATO-led bombing campaign in 1999, but speaking to ABTN, he said that traffic was now increasing.
”The most difficult year was 1999 when there was the [NATO] bombing,” he said, ”but we managed to save our two aircraft at that time by flying them to Athens. If we hadn”t, they would have been destroyed and there would be no Montenegro Airlines today.”
Djurisc added that despite the political uncertainty during the last few years leading to independence, British and German visitors in particular, who had previously travelled to the former Yugoslavia, had continued to fly to Montenegro.
And despite the carrier not yet being part of any airline grouping, Djurisc said that ”we have plans of course to be in one of the alliances,” in addition to its existing interline agreements.
Montenegro Airlines says it expects to carry more than a million passengers this year and generate a profit of ”300,000 ($464,000). Some ”200m has also been invested by the government in the country”s two major airports of Podgorica and Tivat.
Growing tourist numbers to the Balkans have also prompted significant hotel investment in Montenegro such as Four Seasons and Kempinski, as well as in Croatia.
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