The Montenegrin government has registered a new airline called ToMontenegro as its flag carrier less than ten days following the collapse of Montenegro Airlines. The company has been founded with thirty million euros in start-up capital. The state noted the airline’s name will likely change and has invited the public to send in their branding proposals. “We had to act fast so we could salvage parts of Montenegro Airlines, however, the name, logo and design are susceptible to change. We invite everyone who is passionate about this matter to send in their proposals to 2montenegro@gov.me. We will present your proposals to the public which will have a final say”, the Minister for Finance, Milojko Spajić said. He added, “A large part of Montenegro Airlines’ hard working employees will be involved in the creation of this new company”.
The race is on to get Montenegro’s new airline off the ground in order to preserve some of Montenegro Airlines’ slots at European airports, crew permits and respond to the quick reaction by its competitors. Montenegro Airlines has been suspended from IATA Clearing House, which provides billing and settlement services in multiple currencies for the air transport industry. Furthermore, Air Serbia, Austrian Airlines, Air France and Alitalia have ended their codeshare partnerships with the grounded airline. “Montenegro Airlines’ status is undefined. We are trying to keep the company alive in this transition period while we form a new carrier. We are aware that we must have a national airline”, the Minister for Capital Investments, Mladen Bojanić, said.
Commenting on the new airline, Mr Bojanić noted, “ToMontenegro will be the pride of the country and will be profitable, unlike its predecessor. Montenegro Airlines was in debt tens of millions of euros to everyone. The company had negative capital amounting to sixty million euros. Two days before its last service, the flight from Podgorica to Vienna was cancelled because of debt owed to Eurocontrol”. Mr Bojanić previously said it could take between six to nine months to launch a new airline but that efforts would be made to do so before the start of the height of the summer season.
Comments
AIR ĐETIĆ
Then what was the point of closing MGX?
Watch and learn!!
(presipanje iz šupljeg u prazno sasvim okej funkcioniše na našim prostorima)
It's not like they need to rebrand seriously. Never had a loss of life or anything similar.
Regards, Eight.
He thinks new airline will be money losing always and after pandemic, not only now.
No offense, but forcing national carriers in ex yu countries, only due to "national pride" is typical balkans nonsense that eventually ends up being subsidized by the citizens who could use their tax money being spent in numerous smarter ways than to constantly be saving these carriers from the brink of bankruptcy.
That goes for all of them .
As usual, Slovenia is the smartest player.
If they plan on return flights name should be To&FromMontenegro.
I don't know if you are aware, but the dominant airline in Slovenia went bankrupt shortly before Covid. How quickly would you expect that capacity to be replaced?
If such magic worked, every government would be doing it all the time, whenever a problematic company gets in too much trouble.
Moreover, YM was structurally in so much trouble (i.e. thoroughly corrupt and inefficient) that it's probably easier to start anew.
2) we already have schedule for summer season 2020 before any covid situation and again it would be disaster compared to 2019. So more than 6 months is not enough to prepare your schedule? Let's admit to ourselfs that foreign carriers does not have intentions to fly to LJU or they fly with really small amount of flights.
Situation as we had in past with JP will never happen again without national carrier.