Air Serbia extends Hainan Airlines cooperation

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Italy to sell ITA in June

Italy's government aims to sell state-owned ITA Airways, the successor to Alitalia, by the end of June after setting a deadline for binding offers of May 23, Economy Minister Daniele Franco said. Three prospective bidders for ITA Airways have had access to its finance data room, Franco said addressing parliament over the issue. They are shipping group MSC alongside Germany's Lufthansa, the U.S. Certares fund in cooperation with Delta and Air France, and investor Indigo Partners, Franco added. Under a government decree, Rome plans to privatise ITA through a direct sale while retaining a minority, non-controlling stake in a first stage. MSC in January requested an exclusivity period of 90 days to iron out details of an acquisition, but Rome opted for a market-based procedure aimed at keeping the door open to other potential suitors. "The outcome of the negotiations is not a foregone conclusion. We will examine the three offers in a transparent way, there is no decision on our part at present", Franco said adding a key factor is that the buyer is at least 51% owned by a European player. Lufthansa is interested in taking a minority stake in ITA, leaving the majority to MSC, the airline said in remarks during its shareholders meeting. It added, however, that the review of ITA's financial data would be important to confirm this preliminary intention. If the deal does go through, Lufthansa aims to build a close commercial cooperation with ITA and expects synergies to make the investment profitable in the long term, the carrier said. Under an agreement with the European Union, Rome can inject up to 1.35 billion euros into the ITA by 2023. A privatisation deal would potentially reduce the financial support granted by the state, limiting the costs for Italian taxpayers.

Air Serbia extends Hainan Airlines cooperation

NEWS FLASH

Air Serbia has renewed its Special Prorate Agreement with Hainan Airlines enabling passengers to reach Beijing from Belgrade via Brussels, Berlin and Moscow. “When Hainan Airlines decides to increase capacity to Europe and when the Chinese market additionally opens up, passengers will be able to travel from Beijing to other destinations in China”, Air Serbia said. The two carriers have been cooperating since 2016. In 2017, Hainan Airlines launched flights from Beijing to Belgrade via Prague, which ran for a year. China was Belgrade Airport’s largest unserved market prior to the pandemic. In 2019, Shanghai was the busiest unserved route from the Serbian capital, followed by Beijing. Jointly, the two cities accounted for 114.641 indirect passengers at Belgrade Airport.

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Anonymous10:35
Hopefully prices will be more reasonable. JU-CA via VIE was like €1.100.
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Anonymous10:46
how is this number of 114.641 indirect passengers includes calculated. Does it count one passenger arrival and departure at BEG once, or twice?
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JATBEGMEL12:10
Its fascinating to see how they are focused on PEK while ignoring PVG, which has the larger demand.
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Anonymous16:01
Once direct flights are established we will see a significant increase in trade/investment. Airline travel is not only about tourism, it's also about business, and right now China are the world leaders in investment.

With so much Chinese investment in Serbia, it looks like Belgrade is headed to become the Vancouver of Europe.
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