UAE inks Montenegro open air deal

Door open for UAE airlines to fly to Montenegro

The United Arab Emirates General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said it has signed an open air services agreement and also initialed an air services agreement with Montenegro. The agreement was initialled by Saif Al Suwaidi, director general of GCAA and Mirel Radić Ljubisavljević, deputy minister for Air and Road Transport of Montenegro in Podgorica last week. Representatives from Abu Dhabi Department of Transport, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Etihad Airways and Emirates Airline took part in the negotiations. The two delegations later agreed that any number of designated airlines of both parties will have the right to perform scheduled air services, said a GCAA statement. Under the agreement, The UAE team designated Emirates, Etihad, Air Arabia, RAK Airways and FlyDubai as the national airlines, while the Montenegro delegation named Montenegro Airlines as its designated airline.

The memorandum of understanding allows full flexibility on the routes, capacity, number of frequencies and types of aircraft, in any type of service (passenger or cargo). The signed memorandum also includes the exercise of fifth freedom traffic rights. In addition, both parties agreed to allow unrestricted non scheduled operations between the two countries.

In 2010 there were reports that Etihad Airways was interested in purchasing Montenegro Airlines. However, the 30% sale of Montenegro Airlines shares ultimately failed with no bidders. In 2009, Serbia and the UAE signed a similar agreement while last year Macedonia signed an air transport agreement with Qatar. Currently, Belgrade is the only EX-YU city connected to the United Arab Emirates with flights to Dubai, operated by Jat Airways.