Air Serbia: Ending Marathon cooperation inevitable

Air Serbia has said the termination of its wet-lease contract with Marathon Airlines for five Embraer aircraft was inevitable and a necessity after the events on February 18 when an E195 jet made contact with airport equipment upon take-off, in what the Center for Investigation of Accidents in Transport of the Republic of Serbia (CINS) has now categorised as an accident. Air Serbia's CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “This was a very serious incident, we are aware of the potential consequences that could have occurred. That's why we very quickly made the decision to terminate cooperation with Marathon Airlines, regardless of the fact that it is a certified European airline. The decision was necessary because the safety of our passengers comes first. We will wait for the final results of the investigation, but this step was inevitable". He added, "We will contact all passengers from the flight, familiarise them with the procedure, what to do and how to fill out the compensation form. We will take appropriate measures as a matter of priority and in accordance with our regulations".

The decision to terminate the contract for five aircraft arises the question as to how Air Serbia will manage to deal with the equipment deficit. Today, just four departing flights were scheduled to operate with the Embraers, including two services to Frankfurt, one to Milan and one to Bucharest. All are operating today with Airbus A319 jets instead. For tomorrow, eight departing flights were to be maintained by Embraers. However, in March alone, the airline had scheduled the Marathon-operated aircraft on 12.5% of all of its flights. While some have been swapped over to other equipment, some flights on routes where there are multiple daily departures have been cancelled and passengers put on one of the other daily options. The airline is yet to publicly address how it will deal with the fleet shortage, although it said yesterday Embraer flights would “now be operated by other aircraft in the fleet to maintain traffic continuity".

CINS has made its first public comments on the accident. Its head, Nebojša Petrović, said, “What has been undoubtedly established and what I can share with you is that Air Traffic Control gave clear instructions to the pilots from where to enter the runway for take-off, and that they [pilots] did not comply with that information. This points our investigation in a certain direction. However, the case itself is much more complex and will consist of two parts. First, information and data from domestic institutions and authorities will be collected, then, for the second part of the investigation, information must be submitted from five more countries - Poland and Italy - from where the pilots are from, Denmark, where the plane is registered, Brazil, where it was manufactured and Greece, where Marathon Airlines is registered. According to our estimates, the investigation will last at least three months”. He added, “All of these countries can join our investigation, either directly or through our teams”.

The Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, in cooperation with the police, have opened an investigation into the matter. “The police have been ordered to determine what happened on this occasion, as well as to potentially identify the responsible persons. It is necessary to check how this event unfolded, the damage to the plane, whether the passengers and crew were in danger at any time, as well as conduct interviews with employees of Air Traffic Control, the pilot and crew”, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office said.