Government gives up on B&H Airlines
According to the “Dnevni Avaz” newspaper, the Federation government of Bosnia and Herzegovina has decided to shut down its national carrier B&H Airlines. Cabinet members of the Federation government are set to vote in favour of the airline’s closure as it can no longer support B&H which has accumulated significant debt for its relatively small size. The government forks out 3.5 million euros for the carrier on an annual basis. Dark clouds began to gather over the airline early last year when Turkish Airlines relinquished a 49% stake in the carrier, blaming the government for its inability to develop the Bosnian carrier. Similarly, the government has blamed Turkish Airlines for leaving B&H in a worse state then prior to the acquisition.
B&H Airlines has not commented on the news which has been circulated across other media in the region. The airline is still selling tickets and operating services normally. Recently, B&H was grounded for over a week after its bank accounts were frozen due to outstanding debt on loans taken out for the purchase of two ATR72s, only one of which is active in the B&H fleet. The Bosnian carrier has plans to lease a jet engine aircraft and launch flights to Skopje from May 1. A source from the Bosnian government told the “Avaz” newspaper that several airlines showed interest in taking a minority stake in the carrier late last year but all abandoned such plans once they saw the state B&H was in. Last week Turkish Airlines and B&H ended all cooperation after the Bosnian carrier ceased code sharing on Turkish Airlines flights to Istanbul.
B&H Airlines employs 108 people. It marks the second attempt at a national carrier in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its predecessor, Air Bosna, operated services from 1994 until 2003 before it went bust due to outstanding debt. B&H Airlines launched flights in 2005. Besides Air Bosna, only two other national carriers from the former Yugoslavia have ceased operations. They are Palair Macedonian Airlines and MAT Macedonian Airlines.
What a shame! I am positive that OS, TK, LH and OU (maybe even JU and JP) earn a lot of money from SJJ pax. JA must have been a success. Who is to blame?
ReplyDeleteexcellent. one less who kills the market.
ReplyDeletewho to blame? the market plus the governments ineffiency
let s hope that those loosing the job will soon find a new challenge either with one of the competitors or in a different environment
I was expecting this for a long time. An airlines that changes its schedules and fleet every week only conduses customers, who in the end decide to go elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteWho cares about Joke Airlines anyway? Who will fly with them?
ReplyDeleteJoke Airlines is spending more time on the ground (SJJ) than in the air. No one cares in the "Region".
OT: TOP NEWS: Adria will be soon sold to Air Berlin
ReplyDeletebye bye Star Alliance, welcome One World
DeleteThe keyword being "soon." If I earned a Euro each time this four-letter word did not quite make it to the real world in the Balkans I would be a Euro billionaire.
DeleteI will believe it when I see it.
If there are any spotters out there Germanwings is sending their A319 with the new livery to Belgrade today. The flight is scheduled to land in about one hour from now.
ReplyDeleteE sad cemo da vidimo cija majka crnu vunu prede.
ReplyDeleteMinistre Bijednicu, eto ti novinara pred vratima i pjevaju ''otvori mi belo Lence vratata...''pa sad vidi ko je kome blizak izvor.
Sad ce se vidjet ko je koga naziogu. Mislim da ste vi svoje otpjevali od iduce sedmice.
Good riddance!
ReplyDeleteLet diaspora flush toilets in Sweden to pay high fares to star alliance mafia.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is kind of expected. Better to have no national airline than this disastrous venture with one turbo-prop. I hope this is a good news for the SJJ Airport as there will be no more protectionism, which might attract more airlines and ultimately lower price for passengers.
ReplyDelete@exyu admin: Pleas delete when zagy zagy build commebts. What a shame that BH will shut down. i was kind of expecting this because Bosnian market is simply too small. It might have been profitable as LCC but not as full service national carrier.
ReplyDeleteWell said! I'm sick to death of reading a certain someone's Zagy Zagy Build nonsense every single day! He is just jealous!
DeleteZagreb nije imao "tu sreću" da mu Jugoslavija (tj. svi mi zajedno) izgradi puno prevelik i moderan terminal. Zagreb je u toj Jugoslaviji morao biti uvijek zakidan.
DeleteI što se sada i vidi. Beograd je ispred za SAMO milijun putnika iako je kao grad bitno veći od Zagreba. Uz to Beograd je de facto je jedina zračna luka u Srbiji, u usporedbi sa 9 zračnih luka u Hrvatskoj koje generiraju daleko veći promet. Beograd još uvijek nije sustigao predratne rezultate kada je umjetno povečavan broj putnika preko Beograda, pa su bile i tragikomične situacije u kojima je daleko više letova bilo na lijiji Dubrovnik-Beograd nego Dubrovnik-Zagreb ili Split-Beograd nego Split-Zagreb. Uz to letovi prema Zagrebu rijetko su se konektirali, pa su to više-manje bili P2P putnici, dok su oni za Beograd uvijek imali odlične konekcije. Zagreb je već odavno debelo prešišao rezultate iz 80-tih. I Dubrovnik, i Split...
O Jatu koji je uspio uništiti poklonjenu flotu od 30 aviona, slotove, poslovnice... da i ne govorimo
I ti nakon svih tih pljački i zapostavljanja, još imaš obraza pisati "whan zagy"? To ipak govori o tvom karakteru, odgoju i backgroundu.
Zagy zagy, when build a build aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, can't be jealous cause no terminal in zagy, no money no funny honey bunny..................
DeleteFlew BEG-IST-BEG recently on JU, there were around 20 pax each way only (it was Monday though, last Sunday there were 98 pax). It was YU-ANJ both ways. The plane looks new, but required ground generator cause APU was not functional. Jat agent in IST says JU pax weren't affected by Pegasus entrance into the market, but that TK flies full planes all the time, consisting mostly of transit pax.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, IST was a disaster: chaos, overcrowded, lengthy security checks, the check-in agent didn't speak any English, BEG was a real relief after that. The airport is pretty small for the number of pax it handles (only 3 times the capacity of BEG but 10+ times more pax). The whole transportation infrastructure in Istanbul seems completely insufficient and chaotic, not just the airport.
DeleteWhy not flying with Pegasus only to test them once?
DeleteI think Sabiha is a good alternative to crowded Atatuerk airport.
And what means Jat pax are not affected by Pegasus?
How do you mean it?
I flew with Pegasus before around Europe and within Turkey, they're very good and correct, i strongly advise them. Just in this case i had to fly on exact dates and Pegasus simply isn't flying on Mondays to/from BEG. (They were flying on Sunday but for a price it would altogether put it almost equal to the one i paid with JU.)
DeleteSabiha is not overcrowded but extremely far from the city if you are staying on the European side (excluding Sultanahmet/Eminonu area where you can get a boat rightaway). You just get sick of the transfer and pay a lot.
Traffic in Istanbul recently became just insane, haven't seen anything comparable even in China or India.
Last question, i meant that JU's general load on the route didn't decrease since Pegasus started flights, i think it's TK that is more affected cause of its much larger transit share. JU has best loads on Sundays, worst on Mondays.
They get some transfer pax to SJJ and the region too but not beyond or rarely.
Ah i see...
DeleteThis was a very insightful reply.
Thank you for your answer Aerologic!
The problem at this airline like the rest is management. You have to have consistency to attract passengers as they have to know they will be able to get where they intent to go and not have their flights cancelled for no good reason.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame as they could have been successful had they focused on a few core routes instead of announcing and cancelling routes every few hours.
I hope BH Airlines will not cease their operations. The number of employees has to decline.
ReplyDeleteWales , Belgium. Go go
ReplyDeleteBravo
Doesn’t need to... Croatia can not be harmed. We beat Serbia just 2 days ago, if you didn't notice. So, there is no danger for Croatia at all.
Delete...and it is 1:1 now!
...and 2:1 for Croatia! So, you are very unhappy now, aren't you?
DeleteA shame they will shut down? For sure. The economy of BiH needs every help it can get - we approach 20 years since the conflict, its a shadow of its former self.
ReplyDeleteThis entire problem is due to MISMANAGEMENT. Two regional planes not flying to the country's biggest trading partners (Croatia, Serbia), exorberant fares, and lack of connecting flights are a fraction of the problems faced by this incompetent lot. Those AT7s should be doing 3-4 daily rotations of flights up to 90mins. VIE was a great example of not knowing how to run/sustain a profitable destination.
The biggest question remains as to who will cover the capacity shortfall: OU nor JU has enough fleet to properly cover the departure of JA. It just strengthens the case for OU to have 'traded' the 320 for two Q400s, and base one at SJJ...
Ja znam engleski dovoljno dobro da razumijem o cemu se ovdje prica. Malo mi je teze napisati odgovor.
ReplyDeleteAir Bosna je (potvrdjeno) imala dobit od 700.000 konvertibilnih maraka u 2012. nakon odlaska mlaznog aviona i turske uprave. Malo cudno ali istinito da su to sve zaradili sa jednim ATR avionom.Bar je tako potvrdila federalna revizija. I opet raji firma ne valja. Po meni je odraz pravog stanja u kompaniji to da li ce se drugi avion vratiti sa remonta i da li ce od 22aprila krenuti letovi za Makedoniju. Ako toga ne bude,adio drugovi. A inace, neka svi ovi zlonamjerni sepu tuki jer nasa kompanija nit je uzela nesto tudje nit je nekoga prevarila a toliki otpor i zgrazanje izaziva da je to nevidjeno.
A taksa od svih drugih prijevoznika (Austrian, Turkish, Germanwings, Croatia, Jat, Adria, Pagasus...) koja se po principu reketarenja naplačuje i onda daje samo i isključivo B&H Airlinesu? To nije uzimanje tuđeg?
DeleteJa ne znam o cemu ti pricas, kakva taksa ??? Ima samo pare kojima se trebaju placati Atr-ovi i naplacuje se samo u Federaciji i to samo u Sarajevu koliko znam. Sta tebi nije drugo jasno, kakav reket spominjes ? Sta je to tudje ? Sto je Malev iznosio sedmicno po 300.000 EUR iz Sarajeva sa kompanijskom postom i na kraju izradio 1600 putnika iz Sarajeva (samo iz Sarajeva) Sto Germanwings, Pegasus i Norwegian lete za Sarajevo, nemaju nikoga od osoblja I NE PLACAJU NIKAKVE POREZE NITI RADE NA PROJEKTU ZAPOSLJAVANJA MLADIH.
ReplyDeleteNigdje drugdje na svijetu strane kompanije ne placaju taksu koja ide domacoj kompaniji. To ne da nema pameti nego je cisti reket, i konacno zbog toga Sarajevo ima i toliko skroman promet, medju daleko najmanjima na podrucju bivse Jugoslavije.
DeleteMalev nije ništa iznosio nego je letio za SJJ i pritom placao desetak razlicitih nameta zracnoj luci i drugima, gorivo, catering, niz usluga... Kao i sve druge kompanije. Kao i svagdje drugdje u svijetu. Zar bi po trebi iz SJJ trebala letjeti samo domaca kompanija? Nije li po istoj logici B&H Airlines "odnosio" putnike Turkishu iz Istanbula kao strana kompanija koja tamo ne zaposljava ljude, ne placa poreze, ne radi na projektu zaposljavanja mladih? I ne bi li isto tako onda JA trebao placati "reket" u IST, ZRH, CPH, AMS, SKP?
Takse se naplacuju samo u Sarajevu kazes? A negdje drugdje u BiH ima redovnog prometa? Oh, da, sorry, Banja Luka ima 3 puta tjedno po 1/2 aviona kao stop iz SJJ za ZRH.