Game over for Srdjan Radovanović

Radovanović’s time to fly
The CEO of Jat Airways, Srdjan Radovanović, is expected to be ousted from his post by the end of next week after a damaging front page article in the national newspaper, “Politika”, reported on the shortcomings of his management. Jat’s Finance Department, which was restructured by Radovanović earlier this year, has not been running the airline’s books properly and has failed to pay its debt to Jat Catering, Jat Tehnika, Lufthansa Tehnik, the water supply company and the electricity supply company. It also owes money to various media outlets for the airline’s recent advertisement campaigns. Furthermore, Jat owes money to the Jordanian aviation directorate for unpaid overfly fees and to its ground handling agent in Dubai.

Employees at the airline are anticipating Radovanović’s exit. The blog has recently received e-mails from several disgruntled employees revealing the inner workings of Srdjan Radovanović’s team, which is now pushing for a disastrous ticket price restructuring plan which will hurt the airline and all its international cooperation agreements. Furthermore, Radovanović decided to sell Jat’s headquarters in Belgrade earlier this year and the entire company is now moving to derelict buildings near the airport. This is in line with the CEO’s policy of closing down the airline’s international offices which has had a drastic impact on Jat’s sales figures in the past 2 months.

In order for Radovanović to be removed from his post, Jat’s management board (which is at war with the current CEO) has to meet. It is believed that they will be doing so next week and were waiting to get the all clear from the Serbian Government, which appointed Radovanović as Jat CEO in the first place.

Srdjan Radovanović, a lawyer by profession, was appointed as the airline’s CEO in 2009, despite the fact that he has never worked in the airline industry. The similarly disastrous management strategy was led by the previous CEO, Saša Vlaisavljević, who worked as a ground handler at Belgrade Airport before being appointed as the head of Jat. After he was driven out of the company he became the city manager of Belgrade only to be fired 2 weeks later.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:03

    Another one bites the dust...
    The sad thing is, he is gone but another, just as bad and just as incompetent idiot will come to replace him...

    There are so many capable Serbs working in United-Continental which I am sure could be lured into working with Jat.
    I am just wondering what will happen with the millions that was paid to Deloitte...

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  2. Anonymous10:00

    Prilikom prvog njegovog pojavljivanja na TV-u se videlo da je čovek kompletan retard.

    Ali nekome je to odgovaralo...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Arturo10:59

    The whole culture has to be changed, not just the CEO. JAT looks like a political machine rather than a proper airline. Rumoured to buy Airbus today, rumoured to buy a Boeing another. 2 flights a week to here, 2 flights a week to there. Fine, it's cool to have a flight to Tripoli and Monastir. But you are flying for money, not glory! Focus on what you're best at. Make use of your second-to-none hub advantage in Belgrade. The issue is not those ageing 737. The issue is nobody knows what they want.

    I spoke to some friends who work at various levels in the Balkan aviation industry. I often heard route planning rationale as such: "Serbian students study there!" or "Flying to Brussels help integrate us to Europe!"

    Hello?

    JAT needs a Tony Tyler, Tony Fernandez or Gordon Bethune type of management team. These are the people who know how to turn things around with limited resources.

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  4. kratko i jasno: KONACNO

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  5. b - 73711:35

    This becoming like terrible nightmare, without exit. Sasa Vlaisavljevic is now vice president of Privredna komora Srbije, that is probably reword for his "great" results in Jat.

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  6. Anonymous11:59

    Thinking positive....JAT is actually closing down international offices. In the era of internet, who actually needs paying rent for physical office and a representative that sells 3 tickets per day.

    chelica2

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  7. I agree with Arturo in general, though Tripoli and Monastir are not the best examples to corroborate this. Tripoli and Malta are served together once a week which is ridiculous. TIP is a corporate market (Serbian construction companies operating in Lybia) and MLA is a leisure market, mostly FIT. Therefore neither frequency nor timings fit adequately the needs of potential customers. On the other hand OS and AZ offer competitive fares and daily connections to TIP, taking over most of potential customers.

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  8. Anonymous12:34

    Well Malta is mostly for the Serbs living there. I think the Serbs are one of the biggest minorities there (and they are usualy quite wealthy).
    Monastir is flown because of tourists, since the route has been there for years means that there is enough demand.

    @Arturo
    Jat is not like B&H cancelling routes after two weeks of flying there. Most of their schedules is stable and the only thing that changes are the hours.

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  9. i probably said this in previous posts, but JAT definitely needs small to medium capacity jets (CRJ200, 700 or ERJ145, E-170(175)) to use them on routes that don't need large capacity (in JAT terms) planes (TIP, MIR, BRU daily, MLA)

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  10. Anonymous12:53

    The best smaller plane for Jat is E-170. Around 60 seats it would allow them to go daily to Athens, Milano, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Dusseldorf...
    In summer they could add frequencies to cities like Paris, Zurich, Amsterdam which will facilitate connecting via Belgrade particularly for their afternoon flight to Skopje...
    I guess Jat can not be a competitive airline on the market until it serves all the major European cities on a daily basis.
    The best example is Malév!

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  11. I wonder if the new CEO will cancel the plans to lease the Airbus??????

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  12. @Arturo & Anonymous 5

    Spot on! E-170/175 would fit in perfectly and enable more frequencies with better CLF. And A319 for longer range higher density and Bob's your uncle! :-) For regionals E-135/145 and add BNX, TZL, OMO, MBX and re-open INI.

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  13. Anonymous14:11

    I do not think that Jat should go with E-jets for regionals. Atr's are far more economical for those routes.
    I think Jat needs to break into two. Mainline Jat that will operate the main routes and then have a regional branch made up of Atrs. The regional would be feeding Jat's market from the Balkan area. Have up to 10 Atr's that will fly to Thessaloniki, Montenegro, Sarajevo, Croatia, Slovenia, Bulgaria...
    Additionally I wonder if Jat could use it's rather ok coverage of Central Europe to tap into the Turkey-Austria/Switzeralnd/Germany market. Naturally they wouldn't be flying to Ataturk but Sabiha Gokcen. That route can be easily operate by an Atr. Why not something like this:
    BEG-Sabiha
    20:30-23:30
    06:00-07:00

    The times are not that horrible and I am sure with the right pricing it could work. Naturally for that Jat would need to have 08:00 departures to at least Vienna, Zurich, Copenhagen, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam...
    However that is why you need a regional branch, so that mainline Jat doesn't suffer while the regional one expands and enters new neighbourly markets.

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  14. Anonymous14:13

    I forgot to add, Sabiha could be very well profitable as it is much cheaper to fly into.
    Belgrade-Istanbul is at around 180 euros, to Sabiha it could start from 60-70!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous16:20

    A few FACTS:

    1) There are NO plans to lease Airbus or anything else

    2) Radovanovic did NOT choose to sell the headquarters building to Telekon Srbija. They had no choice, and as Telekom is about to be privatized, they are being evicted from the building.

    3)Radovanovic will be VERY lucky if he only gets fired - he may wind up being led out of building in hand-cuffs for his actions.

    4) Saša Vlaisavljević will not be sleeping well this week either -he could be in some SERIOUS sh!t too.

    Stay tuned.

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  16. b - 73718:01

    @ last Anonymous

    I hope that 3) and 4) will happen soon if they want to save something of Jat.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Anonymous21:21

    I am really happy if 3) and 4) actually come true. This game with Jat needs to stop, it's about time.

    ReplyDelete
  18. @
    Anonymous said...
    I do not think that Jat should go with E-jets for regionals. Atr's are far more economical for those routes.

    i'm not talking about regional routes (up to 800 kms). i'm talking about low density medium range routes (up to 3.000 kms). for regional routes, ATRs are the best, but for medium range, i don't think so.
    to conclude: JAT, at this point, must have 80% of planes in seat range 40 to 100, 15% should be 100 to 180, 5% 200 for ultra-high density routes (example: 30 planes: 12 ATRs(6 42s and 6 72s, half based in INI), 12 E-jets/CRJs (8 E170/CRJ700, 4 E145/CRJ200, 3 to 5 based in INI), 5 B737-7/A319 and 1 B737-9/A321)

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  19. Anonymous08:32

    I do not think it would be a good idea to base Atrs in INI. The shortest route from Nis would be Vienna, that is already like 1h10min from Belgrade. I suppose that from Nis it would be over 1h30 making it too long in my opinion. If Jat would go with the Ejets then I think they could base some E-145s there which would allow them to fly comfortably and fast to places like Vienna, Zurich...

    As for Jat, yes I think so too that for the Balkan flights Atrs are the best. For the European routes I agree with you, they need only a few big planes which would operate to places like Paris, London, Moscow, Frankfurt... For example maybe it would be better if they wouldn't go with the big planes like A321/B737-800 but rather let's say with B737-700 and have the route fly twice a day. After all today frequencies are more important than capacity. That is what Malév understood and are doing very well with it. Most of their European flights are operated twice a day with a combination of 737-600/700/800 making it very easy for Business people.
    Then you have airlines like Lot whose core fleet consists of Ejets, something I recomed for Jat as well.
    By having E-jets they could increase routes like Tripoli, Malta, Larnaca... which are too far for the Atrs but too big for the Boeings.
    If the Jat managment was any smart they would get a few E-jets that Lot is trying to get rid of...
    Also, why not move all the Balkan flights to the terminal one, it would make them 8-10 euros cheaper.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous10:48

    I totally agree with Arturo. JAT may have one day enjoyed making money all those destinations they currently fly to, clearly a restructure can include cancelling or cutting back on certain routes that don't make money for them. Just because of Ex YU diaspora around the world is not an excuse to fly there, it won't be making any money!

    As much as I have always loved this airline, they need to think logically and that may mean been allowed to be taken over by an airline who knows how to run one well.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Anonymous11:35

    Let's remember one airline the wanted to fly to every place where a large diaspora was settled. The name was Olympic and it went bust because it was similarly dis-organized like JAT! I can't hear this argument with diaspora anymore.... the diaspora flies in peak summer and around Xmas....and that's it! Btw not willing to pay high fares.
    What JAT needs is point-to-point frequency and that's possible with smaller planes only. It should build its fleet around the E-family. Daily flights to CDG,AMS,CPH,ATH,IST....etc. with 80% load factor instead of 50% Just forget the transit pax to Skopje etc. 4 sector tickets with low fares will never bring the profit. Let concentrate with 10-12 E-jets on the trunk routes and that's it!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous12:52

    I dont like these cheap Brazilian E-jets. I would prefer if Jat bought Bombardier crj-900s or Sukhoi superjet 100s. Much better than the E-jet and more economical for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous13:19

    Nikola, interesting idea about the fleet. If only there was somebody in Jat and their owner to think of something similar and implement it.
    Totally agree with the rest in favor of going for E-jets.

    As of Jat CEO, they are all the same and the one who will eventually replace him will be the same...soldiers of the party who brought them there, with no idea about aviation and management.

    ReplyDelete
  24. ATRs in INI are for Balkan flights and connections to BEG. E-Jets or CRJs are for all other European routes

    ReplyDelete
  25. Anonymous23:08

    Olympic wasn't killed because they tried to fly to diaspora destinations. They never had any issues with the loads, they were killed by the greedy and corrupt Greek government.

    As for the Atrs at INI, there is no demand for any Balkan routes. The only possible is the croatian coast and Montenegro in summer, maybe Corfu or Zakynthos... However nearby possible routes are Istanbul, Antalya and maybe Rome

    ReplyDelete

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