The Montenegrin government has received over 500 proposals for its new national carrier after calling upon the general public for suggestions and providing an e-mail address for those interested to pitch their ideas. The proposals range from the logo and design of the livery, to name suggestions and business pitches. The Montenegrin government has registered a new national airline under the working title “ToMontenegro” to replace its indebted national carrier Montenegro Airlines, which ceased operations on December 25 of last year. "Over 500 proposals with the name, logo and design have been submitted so far at 2montenegro@gov.me. I expect even more suggestions in the coming period. Thank you to everyone and thank you for believing in new beginnings”, Montenegro’s Finance Minister, Milojko Spajić, said.
The Montenegrin government has vowed to set up a new flag carrier as soon as possible but conceded the process may take several months, as the new company has not been established as a successor to Montenegro Airlines, whose accounts are blocked and is in debt in excess of 100 million euros. However, the clock is ticking, with much of the former carrier’s crew having time limitations on the validity of their permits, while departure and arrival slots at European airports will also be lost. Furthermore, Montenegro Airlines has one Embraer 195 jet on financial lease. The first of two annual lease payments to the Brazilian Development Bank, amounting to 1.8 million euros, is due within weeks. If the two payments are made, Montenegro Airlines will officially become the aircraft’s owner this year.
As time continues to pass, foreign carriers are also ramping up their operations to Montenegro or entering the market for the first time. Montenegro Airlines had no competition on three year-round services out of Podgorica. Among them, Paris was the busiest with 42.894 passengers handled in 2019. The route was codeshared by Air France. It was followed by Zurich with 28.294 travellers and Frankfurt with 27.596 passengers. Swiss carrier Chair Airlines has announced it will commence operations to Podgorica on April 1, to cover the void left by the Montenegrin carrier. This month, Air Serbia is Montenegro’s largest airline, operating 130 flights to and from the country (both directions included) with 12.468 seats on sale.
Montenegro two-way frequency and capacity in January 2021
To me this all still looks very amateurish
ReplyDeleteI hope they pay for that Embraer otherwise all the money invested in the lease over the past years will go down the drain.
ReplyDeleteWell they said they established the new company with 30 million so it could pay
DeleteThey only paid 4 million into the new company so far.
DeleteBut they said eventually they will provide 30 million
DeleteNew airline with just 30 million euros... Good luck with that.
DeleteI wonder how much of it is spam
ReplyDeleteHaha my thoughts too
DeleteMontenegro keeps winning!
ReplyDeleteSeriously?
DeleteIs this a joke? They are actually asking people to email them suggestions about what to do?
ReplyDeleteSMFH
I can't believe it either
DeleteIt seems they thought of a way to pick a name and logo without paying the designer.
Deleteno. they just opened competition for company's name
DeleteThere is no competition...
DeleteTime is ticking for this new company and fast
ReplyDeleteNow I'm seriously wondering what was the point of closing YM.
ReplyDeleteThe point was that there was no money left for it.
DeleteThey said they will need up to 9 nine months for the airline to be setup. That's the end of the summer season. Who starts a new airline at the beginning of the winter season? They will say the same and give subsidies to JU and others.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, Montenegro is Air Serbia's playground. That's an undisputed fact.
I highly doubt they are going to subsidize Air Serbia.
DeleteOf course... we all should give money to JU
DeleteThey said up to 9 months but they would try and have it ready by peak summer season.
DeleteWhy would Montenegro give money to them if it is already their playground? For what?
DeleteIt makes sense for JU to add more flights from MNE to other destinations in Europe or to maybe run charters from Tivat to cover what was lost by YM.
DeleteI mean in Montenegro it makes so much more sense to subsidize a Serbian airline than some random Hungarian one.
Are you serious? Random hungarian? That "random hungarian" carries far more passengers, has far larger and newer fleet then JU and it developed many destination to popular tourist places with attractive fares. I would rather say foe JU "random" then for Wizz. For market like montenegro it is far more productive to subsidise Ryan Air or Wizz then any small legacy airline. And they already have many LCC routes to Europe.
Delete"run charters from Tivat to cover what was lost by YM"
DeleteYou would need bit more than charters
Yeah Wizz is so great and reliable, just ask all the airports that are left without service starting with Debrecen. Better to stay away from such predators.
DeleteI'm on team JU all the way.
"I mean in Montenegro it makes so much more sense to subsidize a Serbian airline than some random Hungarian one."
DeleteI love how people call an airline with the fleet 6 times the size of JU and 14 times more passengers flown in 2019 a "random Hungarian one".
Anon 11:37
DeleteThey left these airports because there was no demand. I doubt JU will not do that. And you only want JU more then Wizz beacuse you live in Serbia.
Just give money to LCCs and problem solved. Do the same Macedonia did. It costs just a million a year, which is 10 times less than will be wasted on this project.
ReplyDeleteDoes MNE really want a Hungarian LCC controlling over 80% of its market? I don't think so.
DeleteIt wouldn't happen because there is much stronger competition than in Macedonia.
DeleteAnon 09:18
DeleteYou have also an irish LCC in MNE. So it is immposible for Wizz to control 80%.
I thought the free market would regulate itself, right? Lol
DeleteIt is slowly. Keep in mind there is a pandemic going on.
DeleteThen there would be no need to pay LCCs
Delete1 mio € ? Where did you get that? MKD is paying more than 10 mio per year to Wizz, for that amount of money you can have your own carrier with much better product.
DeleteReally? You can? 2 mil. passangers for 10 mil. in route subventions?
DeleteSome people think paying LCCs is better option. It is not the same if that opinion comes from anonymous reader as opposed to opinion of this site.
DeleteI never saw on this site any kind of opinion from admin. And i think in some cases is a better option. In many countries happend torist boom when LCCs expanded their opertaions there.
DeleteLCC certainly have positive economic impact. Montenegro could do as North Macedonia instead of investing in a national airline.
DeleteThis is true - regardless of who said it.
Yes, LCCs are surely great. But not when you have to pay them millions to fly every year and when they have almost 70% of the market share with barely any competition
Delete@15.31 lol same old story. Macedonia pays them 1 milion a year (Go and figure out how cheap is that if you know at all). Accept it . Its not Wizz problem that no other airline applied for the money
Delete@15:31: And how is that different from government paying millions every year to national carriers, only to end up with majority market share with barely any competition?
DeleteI should accept that they have chased away any competition and threatened them if they dared to stop the subsidies coming in by cutting and downgrading routes. Wizz are vultures.
DeleteI am a different anon: a question: why should Macedonia stop subsidies to Wizz? They pay 1 mln euro and they got 5-4 aircraft in a base. Count how much it is per seat and compare it with how much Croatia/Serbia pay yearly IN TOTAL per seat of their national carriers. What Macedonia pays is peanuts.
DeleteAnd macedonia still doesnt have flights to major european hubs
Deleteso what? VIE and IST are obviously enough
Delete"Prethodna Vlada Crne Gore zagrizla je još jednom metak i u oktobru 2019. godine najavljen je lex specijalis koji je trebalo da preokrene tadašnju finansijsku depresiju kompanije od 80 miliona evra javno prijavljenih minusa, za pet godina, sa ukupno 155 miliona evra"
Deleteversus 1milion a year
Well, Macedonia does not apparently need connections to all those major European hubs. Neither it needs a hub itself to spend 90% of its subsidies on subsidising travel that is actually not to/from Macedonia, but only transfering at its hub. This is why it pays less per seat of a based aircraft.
DeleteFlew on JU 191 yesterday and there was a group of at least 5 to 10 people connecting to Podgorica.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised there were over 10 people on that flight in total.
DeleteJU dis not further reduce LJU meaning flights do well in general.
DeleteAnonymous10:36 -- Why are you surprised ? It is ATR, with 60 people on board. If you think that there is not enough people to fill this airplane, than you are very mistaken and without and knowledge. People still need and want to fly, so there is demand at the moment. Bad news for you.
Deletemonthly results says nae
DeleteThis whole thing is such a waste of both time and money.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIn 2 months no one will remember Montenegro Airlines anymore.
DeleteAnon 11:04 for Adria they were saying same thing..
DeleteThat's what they said about Adria too...
DeleteI can only imagine the proposals :D
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see :D
DeleteMontenegro Airports just announced MGX owes them 25 million EUR.
ReplyDeleteThey owe money to everyone. That's why it had to be shut down.
DeleteJust a few days ago some local company offered to buy YM. I don't know why they don;t just give it to them.
DeleteBecause they offer to buy it for 1 euro if all debts are written off.
DeleteBut government will have to pay off the debts anyway.
DeleteIt is not possible for the state to pay off those debts.
DeleteA mafia guy offered 1e for everything good in the company, while all of the debts (public and private!) would be transferred over to the govt. Nothing to see there, just Milo's gang.
DeleteNot true. Just public debts, debts to private companies, banks and institutions that company want to pay.
DeleteI don't think they have any plans to set up a new airline. It's just talk
ReplyDeleteWhy? They said countless times the country needs a national carrier.
DeleteWait and see.
DeleteSame scenario as in Slovenia.
DeleteTwo very different markets so I think we will have different outcomes.
DeleteIt's not about markets, it's also two different type of politicians who are working on that. In addition Slovenia is in EU which is even bigger problem for us in that matter.
DeleteVery interested to see the route network of this new airline
ReplyDeleteYes, very interesting:
Delete1. TGD-BEG-TGD
2. TIV-BEG-TIV
or
TGD-BEG-TIV-BEG-TGD.
Surely there are other routes that can be profitable from Montenegro. Not just Belgrade.
DeleteVIE, ZRH, CDG, AMS, FRA, MUC, CPH, BEG, LJU
DeleteBut the passenger numbers to Zurich, Paris and Frankfurt listed in the article are quite low. Were they really making money on yhese routes.
DeleteTK is really operating a lot of flights to ex-Yu despite the pandemic. I mean no. 2 in Montenegro.
ReplyDeleteSomeone has to provide connectivity to the east.
DeleteThis whole process has been handled very badly.
ReplyDeleteAgree. Should have left MGX flying for at least a week after you announced their closure.
DeleteAt lest they started from somewhere unlike our government in Slovenia. Still waiting for that new national airline.
ReplyDeleteActually I think a lot more has been done in Slovenia on that front then in Montenegro.
Delete@11.07 started asking for emails from the people?
Delete@11:07: You'll be waiting a long, long time.
DeleteMontenegrin government abolishing negative PCR test requirement since yesterday should give a boost to aviation in the country.
ReplyDeleteThere is no aviation industry left in Montenegro. Only foreign airlines can get a boost.
DeleteOf course there is still an aviation sector. If nothing, the airports will benefit.
DeleteAirports are hurting big time after MGX went bust.
DeleteHow are they hurting? MGX owes them 25 million euros. So they are hurting in a way that the debt is not growing? Let's face it - MGX would have never paid the debt.
DeleteSurprising that Paris was busier for Montenegro Airlines then Zurich! Did not expect that.
ReplyDeleteAir France codeshare.
DeleteYes, likely diaspora transfers to US. Plus a lot of French visit Montenegro.
DeleteThey even flew to Lyon seasonally.
DeletePay off the 1 Embraer. Fly to BEG year round and a couple of seasonal routes.
ReplyDeleteVery difficult to create a new airline in these circumstances.
ReplyDeleteIs there potential for long-haul from TGD? If so, which routes?
ReplyDeleteNo, there is no potential for long haul. Especially in a country with population less then Chisinau or Zagreb.
DeleteI'm assuming New York has the biggest demand of all far away destinations from Podgorica. It is Air Serbia's biggest feeder out of its network on JFK flights.
DeleteStill no demand for direct flights.
DeleteOf course. Just guessing which might have the most demand for far away destinations
DeleteHope they can make it a success.
ReplyDeleteI have to ask, what makes them think it will work the second time if it didn't the first? And I'm not against it personally, just don't see why it would be any different
ReplyDeleteI think in the end we will see AirSerbia parking one plane over night for early departure and no MNX vol.2
ReplyDeleteQUICK AIRLINES; "WE MAKE YOU COME QUICK"
ReplyDeleteInteresting months ahead. To many, it is obvious that this is a political move, despite what financial metrics are showing about MA. Let's wait and see (prove).
ReplyDelete