Four million Euros for Banja Luka flights

Sly Srpska left in the cold in favour of Jat
The government of the entity of Repubilka Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina will pay Jat Airways four million Euros over the upcoming 2012 summer season to operate flights from Banja Luka to Belgrade and Vienna. Sky Srpska, the Banja Luka based airline which is still without aircraft of its own, is unhappy with the deal as it means it will not get its own jet until at least the 2012/2013 winter season. “We are very surprised. We nominated Sky Srpska to operate the flights from Banja Luka and now we hear that Jat will operate the service”, Zoran Injac, Sky Srpska’s CEO, said. “It’s completely irrational”, he adds.

The government on the other hand says its agreement with Jat is a done deal. “We have a few technical details to sort out. We need to obtain all necessary licenses from the Civil Aviation Authorities of Serbia and Austria”, the Minister for Traffic and Infrastructure, Nenad Čubrilović, says. He notes that 8 million Convertible Bosnian Marks (just over 4 million Euros) will be provided in subsidies for the service. Although flight details haven’t been revealed yet sources close to the airline say it has been suggested for the service to operate two to three times per week with an ATR72. The additional flights could impact Jat’s plans to launch flights to Pula and Split in the summer of 2012.

Despite a helpless Sky Srpska, it is believed the government concluded that it would cost less to subsidise the flights from Belgrade instead of having to pay not only for an aircraft lease or purchase but also for air crew and other staff in what is still a very small market. During the year, the government of Repubilka Srpska subsidised Adria Airways’ flight from Ljubljana which saw only an average of five passengers per flight. Once the subsidies dried out, Adria suspended the service.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:17

    Good stuff!

    JU will not be transformed next year, so there's enough room for including BNX in their schedule again.

    But they must think twice about the number and distribution of flights!

    They should have done this before JP...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Purger09:22

    For that amount of money I will fly 28 flights per week (4 per day from BNX) all year!!!!

    4 million EUR is much more than stupid to pay for 6 flights per week for 2 short destinations!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Purger09:28

    That is maximum of 312 legs all year with maximum number of 20.600 pax.

    Break even would be some 10.000 pax, and that means they will pay 400 EUR subvention per pax, or 12.821 EUR per one way flight!!!!

    Someone here is stupid or put lot of money in his pocket!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. About Jat, I checked their Su12 timetable and they need 9 planes, 10th has just few flts per week and 6th-9th plane have some room (charters I guess).
    3 ATRs are fully used while the 4th has 2 sometimes 4 flts per day.

    So no additional planes needed.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:02

    it will be better if jat had an aircraft that they don't use and base it at banja luka and jat airways be there hub of the airport because there no hub in banja luka airport and jat can make more money out of it by going to new destinations to and from banja luka airport.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:45

    BH airlines is already serving ZRH and certainly serve much more destinations with that money. ZRH is sustainable because of the combination of the two markets. It makes both VIE and another dest in Germany. viabel.
    The amount is seemingly too much. It seems they are transferring money to Serbia. It is hard to understand why they are so keen to disregard the existing airline of BiH and wast their hard earned money on useless projects like Adira or JAT.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11:48

    Correction:
    BH airlines is already serving ZRH and certainly serve much more destinations with that money. ZRH is sustainable because of the combination of the two markets (SJJ+BNX). With this money, It makes both VIE and another destination in Germany viable.

    The amount is seemingly too much. It seems as if they are transferring money to Serbia. It is hard to understand why they are so keen to disregard the existing airline of BiH and waste their hard earned money on useless projects like Adria or JAT.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous13:11

    @ Sky: where do you download these AEA statistics from?
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous20:05

    Something is wrong here. It was Sky Srpska that asked for 4.000.000 EUR from the Government of R.Srpska, as "Nezavisne novine" reported yesterday. By the way, Minister Cubrilovic's first name is Nenad, not Zoran. Minister said that Sky Srpska's project was too expensive and comparing to that, the amount for this deal with Jat Airways is symbolic.
    Belgrade is hub of Jat Airways.
    No need to complicate Mr Minister. If you choose JAT, then support BNXBEG vv. route.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous20:15

    Let's hope that Jat Airways will set the schedule right and get the connection to most interesting destinations at BEG. Set the fares not too expensive.
    But before that, I'd like to take this oportunity to give free of charge advice to the Government of R.Srpska:
    1. Kick out those bustards from Top Management of AP BNX that are doing nothing but wasting tax payers money for years. Employ the proffesionals.
    2. Make sure They educate airport staff in aviation and in english
    3. Buy a decent ground handling equipment
    4. Make sure AP BNX implements ICAO and IATA standards
    5. Make sure AP BNX improves quality of service and get some ISO.

    Spread the joy, spread the joy... happy new year :))

    ReplyDelete
  11. Crew20:24

    Purger, it's funny 'cause it's true :)

    Money laundering, nothing else... Stupid JAT management, stupid BNX management.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous23:48

    So corrupt it's not even funny

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous10:26

    Ja ipak mislim da se covjek zove Nedeljko a ne Nenad.

    ReplyDelete
  14. To answer some anonymous:
    scheduled statistic for November is here:
    http://files.aea.be/News/PR/PRTU11-11.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  15. Welcome to BANJA LUKA (Republic of Srpska)..........http://sz2604.blogspot.com/2012/04/made-in-serbian-republic-balkan.html

    ReplyDelete

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