Turkish Airlines refutes minister’s claims
Turkish Airlines has denied claims made by the Croatian Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Siniša Hajdaš Dončić, that it is interested in purchasing a stake in Croatia Airlines. “The management has made no decision relating to the takeover of Croatia Airlines”, a statement from Turkish Airlines reads. A former manager at Croatia Airlines, who wished to remain anonymous, is not surprised by the carrier’s decision. “Turkish Airlines has a grand plan to become the largest airline in the world by destination network size by 2038, on the centenary of the death of the father of the Turks Kemal Ataturk. However, Turkish Airlines does not base its growth on equity purchases, rather on organic growth”.
So far, Garuda Indonesia is the only carrier to officially confirm its interest in Croatia Airlines, seeing it as a “logical choice” for its future expansion. The other two airlines believed to be interested in a stake in the Croatian national airline are both from China - Hainan Airlines and China Southern Airlines. Yesterday, Mr. Hajdaš Dončić announced that the tender for the takeover of Croatia Airlines will be launched in two to three weeks time, earlier than originally planned.
Meanwhile, Croatia Airlines’ hub, Zagreb Airport, received good news yesterday after it was revealed that necessary permits have been approved for the construction of the airport’s new terminal. Christophe Petit, who heads the French consortium that will build and manage the new terminal, says there are no longer any obstacles for the construction of the new building to commence. The airport is to officially be handed over to its new owners early next month after which construction is expected to begin. “I can’t say whether it will be the first, fifth or fifteenth of October because every detail has to be in order in the takeover documents”, Mr. Petit commented. The French consortium has exactly three years to build the new terminal from the moment it officially takes over the airport.
ja lepo rekoh "jatovanje u svom najvećem svetlu". mada, u ovom slučaju je bolje reći "kroatovanje"
ReplyDeletezagrebovanje, purgerovanje..
DeleteZašto purgerovanje? Niti ovo ima veze sa Zagrebom (i CTN i ZLZ su isključivo pod upravom Države), niti ovo ima veze sa stanovnicima Zagreb (purgerima). To je kao da za Jatove bisere kažete da su Beogradovanje!
DeleteI da ako je ministar stvarno to izjavio to je Kroatovanje (hrvatsko Jatovanje). Iskreno, nemam ništa bolje mišljenje o našoj vlasti i ministrima, nego onima koji su tako svojski Jatovali. Iako, još se puno moraju potruditi da sustignu Jatovanja, tek su na početku, treba sustići onih brdo bisera koji su došli iz radionice Jata i nadređene mu Vlade. Ali, dobro im ide, imaju šanse!
kako su krenuli, vrlo brzo će sustići Jat
DeletePa brzo neće lista Jatovanja je poprilično velika, ali da su krenuli opako, jesu!
DeleteNije "Jatovanje" nego "jatovanje" a posebno "jatovati, jatovali, jatuju". Nadam se da se slažete.
DeleteSada Croatia Airlines "jatuje" umjesto bivšeg JAT-a.
"jatovanje" je vazduhoplovni žargon za "muljanje" na srpsko-hrvatskom jeziku.
Može li ko "jatovanje" prevesti na engleski?
jating?
DeleteJating bi se preveo na srpsko-hrvatski kao dzating. B)
DeleteI don;t remember of any Croatian minster saying anything about Turkish Airlines, it was Jutarnji list who made this assertions, as well as about Ethiad and number of other airlines.
DeleteCroatian Airlines prefers partner from far east of South East Asia, not mid east, this is the strategy airline is pursuing and government too.
What jutarnji list publishes should be taken with a pinch of slat, or whole scoop if you prefer, for they're the worst newspapers in Croatia, on same level with likes of daily mail and the sun.
They think journalism is hear say and investigative journalism is where journalist research hear says on the Internet, specifically blogs such as this.
If Vecernji list, Novi List published such information than it would have some credence, as it was published by jutarnji list, plz ignore it.
Turkish air, took over BH Airlines while back and that left bitter experience for both parties, something Croatian Government is fully aware off, and they'd rather avoid experience with Turkish Airlines for obvious reasons, OU needs a reliable partner that will help OU expand and become proper airline not just a holiday company.
On another note, Croatian tourism figures have been published for first 8 months, numbers are good despite July and Russian/Ukrainian/Turkish tourist setbacks, eastern European numbers are down by 23%, but British, French, German, Polish, Czech and Italian numbers are up by a massive margin in some cases 15%.
Zagreb had most spectacular growth this year, with 15% increase in arrivals and 12.5% overnight stays in first 8 months, Zagreb is expected to welcome 875 000 visitors in 2013 and 1.4 million nights.
Best year was 1987 and 1990 when Zagreb was visited by 1.02 million foreign and 250 000 domestic visitors and 1.87 million nights.
Zagreb is expected to hit these numbers in 2015 or 2016 at the latest at present rate of growth.
Zagreb plans to more than double number of foreign visitors to 2 million by 2020 and number of nights to 3.2 million, with revenue exceeding $800 million
Croatian Tourism also has great plans, nearly doubling current revenue and number of visitors to 17.5 million tourist and revenue of $19 billion by 2020.
So Split and Dubrovnik have great plans to expand, new 35000sqm passenger terminal will be constructed at Split Airport, old terminal torn down, runway extended by 500m and parallel taxiway constructed with extra 100 000sqm platform added to increase the capacity, and Dubrovnik airport will continue with its terminal expansion with old 60s terminal to be also torn down and new 20 000sqm terminal constructed in its place increasing current terminal to 36500sqm.
With taxiway already added airport only needs to increase capacity of the runway and plans for that should be realized in 2015 when Airport will reconstruct and re-pave runway in its entirety. Both Split and Dubrovnik airports will get CatIIIb runways by begging of 2016 with Zagreb already having CatIIIb runway since 2003.
Zagreb's old terminal might be also demolished, there are no concrete plans but developers are looking at options of removing the terminal and building extra platforms.
Although there are no concrete plans, early days for this, one plan calls for old terminal to be used by low cost and domestic flights only, which isn't bad idea.
'Croatian Airlines prefers partner from far east of South East Asia, not mid east, this is the strategy airline is pursuing and government too. '
DeleteDo you seriously believe that the Croatian government will actually bother to be picky when it comes to the future owner? They would sell it to pretty much anyone as long as they can finance the carrier and keep it afloat so as to prevent OU sharing the same end as Adria.
They would sell to YM if Milo offered enough cash lol.
DeleteWait for the next shipment of cigarettes to reach Bar. Then we can talk about it.
Delete"Croatia Airlines prefers partner from far east of South East Asia, not Mid East....."
DeleteCroatia Airlines can prefer whatever they like, but reality is that OU is on the verge of bancruptcy unless something serious is changed in the way they do business by next autumn the latest.
Anyway, OU should be very happy if ANYONE shows serious intentions of buying
them in the first place. Wish them all good, we all need strong regional competition.
The future of Zagreb airport looks fine, naturally I doubt it will open on time, these kind of projects rarely do. It is important that things are finally moving in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteAs for Croatia Airlines, I doubt they have a bright future ahead of them. Let's not forget that Garuda has just recently started showing positive signs of recovery. Their massive domestic market, which is growing on a daily basis, sees little competition- I am talking about the true kind of competition. Actually Indonesia has overtaken China as the fastest growing market.
Though Garuda has managed to make good use of all this I do not know how competent they will be in running Croatia Airlines which has union which are not easily tamed, a market which is very competitive and all sorts of other challenges. If Croatia Airlines wants to survive, then it needs to be run by an airline which has experience in dealing with similar challenges. Unfortunately the list of potential investors grows thinner with each passing day.
Maybe if they can survive until Austrian Airlines becomes profitable and then try to sell the airline to Lufthansa?
Absolutely agree with you (congratulation for your analysis), but just one thing is not true, that Garuda does not have competition in Indonesia. Here is the list of airlines in Indonesia:
DeleteLion Air (77 planes)
Batavia (51 planes)
Sriwijaya (46 planes)
Merpati Nusatara (44 planes)
Indonesia Air Transport (32 planes)
Trigana (20 planes)
Wings (20 planes)
Airfast Indonesia (19 planes)
Citilink (16 planes)
Pelita (16 planes)
Indonesia Air Asia (15 planes)
Express air (14 planes)
Susi (14 planes)
Travira (12 planes)
Sky Aviation (9 planes)
Daraya (7 plans)
Riau (7 planes)
Premiair (7 planes)
Dirgantara (6 planes)
Transwisata (6 planes)
Estlndo (6 planes)
Kal Star (6 planes)
Kartika (6 planes)
TransNusa (5 planes)
Airmark (4 planes)
Aviaswtar (4 planes)
Sabang (4 planes)
Air Regional (3 planes)
Nusantara (3 planes)
Cardig (2 planes)
Linus (2 planes)
Lorena (2 planes)
Mandala (2 planes)
Magantara (2 planes)
Penas (1 plane)
Post ekspres (1 plane)
Of course some of those exist just on paper, some are low quality, but some are powerful players. For instance Lion Air is one of the most powerful airlines in Asia. Even Air Asia fined it most danger for them and made several moves to fight Lion Air.
actually Lion Air has 95 planes and 535 on order (including 201 737 MAX 9 - launch customer)
DeleteWell, I said that the market doesn't see true competition, at least not as much as it should to be considered as a competitive market.
DeleteIn Indonesia today there are just two serious carriers, Garuda and Lion Air. The latter is regularly attacked for having problems with safety, especially with their pilots who, it seems, don't get enough training before flying. If I am not mistaken, Lion Air is currently banned from flying in the European Union. Not surprising since in the period 2002-2013 they had 10 crashes.
Sriwijaya will become a serious player only when its fleet modernization takes place. Until then they will not be as competitive especially with their very old birds.
Merpati Nusantara Airlines, though rather large in size, is not that big of a threat because it has a large number of small, regional aircraft.
In my opinion, the market of that size should have at least four serious and large airlines. With just two a duopoly can easily occur. However, I am more than confident that this will change with time.
Sure there is. All those companies
DeleteLion Air (77 planes)
Batavia (51 planes)
Sriwijaya (46 planes)
Merpati Nusatara (44 planes)
Indonesia Air Transport (32 planes)
are big, have impressive fleets and even more impressive network. Indonesia had 66 millions air passengers and just 17,1 millions was carried by Garuda.
Lion Air controls roughly 42% of the domestic market in Indonesia. Add to that Garuda and you have a massive market shared mostly between two airlines. The other might have a rather large fleet but their performance is not that great.
DeleteThe bright future has denied its interest in Croatia Airlines and Zagreb airport both.
ReplyDeleteOT: Direktor Jata Velibor Vukašinović razrešen dužnosti, imenovan Dane Kondić
ReplyDeletehttp://tangosix.rs/2013/10/09/direktor-jata-velibor-vukasinovic-razresen-duznosti-imenovan-dane-kondic/
Please people stay positive about Crostia Airlines stay by the facts .They have very professional staff .It's the best airline in the region .
ReplyDeleteThey will be dead by winter 2014/15.
DeleteVery difficult to say for the OU that they are the best in the region. They got some really good make up, new airplanes.. because it was impotrant thing for Tudjman to have a good airnire (which as the matter of fact was a dominant concept for the states in the 20th century). However, they don´t have their own pilot school, technics, a lot of work is outsourced and done by Lufthansa. JAT is maybe not having the best revenue, but it´s for sure the best airliner in the region.
Delete@AnonymousSeptember 10, 2013 at 4:58 PM
Deletearen't you full of shit, OU is best cause its a fact not something spewed on basis of some nationalistic predispositions, its not an opinion by amatures, but by professionals, at international ranking OU jhas attained and service.
Also OU has technical services for servicing their own aircraft at Zagreb airport and Zadar Airport. Both centers actually work on Lufthansa, Austrian and Swissair aircraft under contract from Lufthansa, airbus A319 and A320s.
As to flight school there's no need for one, Croatian Airfroce provides ample experience with 8 simulators in Zagreb and Zadar, and flight training on Zlin 242L, Pc-9m, Bell 206, and Mig 21.
Lufthansa flight Academy provides additional certification for all Croatian Airline pilots, there's no better certificate in the world, so plz.
Croatia Airlines is a good company and will do fine, if things get really bad Croatian Government can step in take over appoint crisis management, restructure the company, fire anyone who needs to be fired and bring airline back in to profit.
Unlike JAT Croatia airline can service its debts, JAT can't it has to be bailed out by Serbian Government who had to take over 267 million eruo debt, something Serb taxpayers will end up paying for decades.
Air Serbia such as it is also has poor long term perspectives, will end up like JAT in 3-4 years time if they're still around.
Well, with Air Serbia's poor long-term perspective thank God we have the successful Croatia Airlines in our region. lol
DeleteBefore last anonymous,
DeleteCould you please be kind enough and tell me why Air Serbia is bound to fail? ;)
Feel free to use the example of Air Seychelles or Jet Airways to prove your point.
Thank you.
@NemjeeSeptember 10, 2013 at 6:30 PM
DeleteCause they're continuing same old ways of JAT, no real idea what they out of air serbia, the management that is.
Sure air Serbia will be headed by Ethiad, itself being propped up by UAE government and oil money.
Total investment in JAT is $200 with Ethiad giving half of that (2 year deal) and half will be spent on leasing Ethiad's own aircraft, so actual investment will be what, 50 million, to fly to very same 28 destinations JAT flew to with ever decreasing frequency and passenger numbers as well as revenue.
For Air Serbia to make even even in first 2 years of operation it would need to generate a profit per aircraft of around $6 million, I simply don't see that happening even after 5 year operation.
I won't go in to debate how Air Serbia is largely a gastrabayter airline aimed at Serbs who live in Europe and Asia., for very few Bosniaks, Croats, Slovens, Macedonians or Kosovo Albanians would fly with such airline for obvious reasons.
Serbia has no particular market it can draw on, no tourism to speak off, no business or little demand for Belgrade.
If you're hoping some Bulgarians, Turks, Romanians, will fly via Belgrade to reach UAE, that might be bit optimistic cause Sofia and Bucharest are decently connected to middle east and there's always Turkish Airlines.
So you see why I see little hope for Air Serbia.
This is probably the most pathetic "analysis" ever written on this blog and that says a lot considering post quality since the initial Etihad announcment. Some people are just blinded by hatred I guess.
DeleteI think that is a very poor analysis and it just goes to show how little you know about aviation... or you simply hate Serbia that much that it is blinding you from seeing the truth.
DeleteHogan told Kondic that he has two years to turn Air Serbia into a profitable carrier. Which is already a strong statement.
Yes, Jat was sold through a political deal but everything Etihad had done since has been for the benefit of the airline. The announcements for this winter season just goes to prove that.
Furthermore, why would someone use Croatia Airlines, Tarom, Austrian Airlines or CSA as its carrier and not Air Serbia? There is simply no good argument against it.
I will not waste my energy to prove you wrong. I will just wait for time to do its own thing and show you how wrong you were. After all, I am sure you were one of those who called us delusional when this deal was announced. Look at what has become of the last version of the so-called jatovanje.
@NemjeeSeptember 10, 2013 at 9:30 PM
DeleteOnly if they need to fly to Belgrade would you really need air Serbia, other than that I truly see no potential of Air Serbia.
And yes time will tell, but you'll see ultimately I was right in my assumptions, and yes i don't know much about airlines but i do run successful architectural firm with 12 staff and can see tell you now that air Serbia will go way of Malev, JAT and other smaller airlines that didn't adapt.
czech Air, Lot and OU will remain successful (if we can use that term) cause they have market and something to offer, example Czech Air - Prague major tourist and business destination, I my self was in Prague 3 times this year and last 5 times all work related, was in Krakow for a city brake, so I can see there's a huge potential for these old cities, they've got something to offer.
I simply can't see what Belgrade has to offer, I truly don't.
And sorry you can't say millions of tourist visit Belgrade or Belgrade is a major international business destination, cause that's not the case, most users of Belgrade airport are Serbians, 73.5%, so its hardly a major international destination.
Logic dictates that for any business to be a success must have a base to build on, a market, a product and good promotion, in short four Ps of marketing.
I simply don't see that at the moment in Belgrade or Serbia.
Well, time will tell.
Delete@NemjeeSeptember 10, 2013 at 9:30 PM
Delete"After all, I am sure you were one of those who called us delusional when this deal was announced. Look at what has become of the last version of the so-called jatovanje."
Ps, sorry no I Don't follow Air Serbia news, I see what others are saying and if they post links, but never commented in Air Serbia threads or under any Serbian Articles, I know you Serbs are very protective of your brand and I'd rather stay out of your threads, so no I won't be posting anything under your threads.
As to Ethiad taking over Air Serbia, I have a mix feelings about whole thing as I knew it was highly political take over and deal with the land in Serbia was only reason why Ethiad was asked to buy in to JAT. I personally have low opinions of political deals and as they're never done on sound commercial basis and never bring any good, in fact most end up disastrous for all concerned despite having originally good intentions.
However I did read timetable when that was posted, i didn't comment but read it well, and understood it is almost identical to JAT's own timetable with 243 weekly operations. I might have made a comment in that regard, if I remember correctly.
Will i open you a secret if i tell you that you're just an idiot?
DeleteThe purchase of Air Seychelles was a political decision too but the airline is doing more than fine now.
DeleteRegarding Air Serbia's winter timetable, yes, the frequencies are the same primarily because the airline will have the same number of planes as Jat did. What is different is that the timing of flights is different which will have a very different impact on the functioning of the airline's base airport.
How poor, biased and hatred screaming analysis of Air Serbia of that Croatian guy above...You are such a sad and bitter creature, mate. Loving your national airline is fine, but posting that much crap is just unbelievable.
DeleteSo just keep posting your bull..., and watch closely the developments in the region in a year or two. Sure you will be very dissapointed :-)
I too have to disagree with the negative comments here about Air Serbia because it is just pure speculation and should be written as such. For example the 'Cro anonymous' above should have written this is what I think will happen…. and that would be fine but to try to make it sound factual is wrong.
DeleteFrom what we know now is you cannot use the Air Seychelles is profitable so therefore so will Air Serbia be argument, unless you want to include Air Berlin into that scenario as well which we all know has huge financial problems despite Etihads help.
Air Serbia should show a profit next year but will it be a 'real profit' in the sense that like the Seychelles government Serbian government has been financially responsible for all of Air Serbia / Jats debt as well as the 500 or so redundancies and 50 percent of the cost of the new aircraft. This however won’t stop Hogan or Etihad claiming their success in making Air Serbia profitable some kind of a business / strategic master stoke which it is clearly not.
In saying that, Jat / Air Serbia has a lot of upside. Belgrade continues to see very good growth where old Jat had only a limited share of that market. This at least gives Air Serbia with their improved service, aircraft, connecting options to the wider world and positive support from the local media room to expand their passenger base at Belgrade.
I'm still on the fence, probably more on the skeptical side when it comes to some of the new destinations like Beirut and Cairo being sustainable as year round scheduled destinations.
Well, Air Berlin is a very different story than Jat/Air Serbia. This is primarily because of German trade union law which is much worse than the Serbian one but also because Air Berlin is an airline without a concise business strategy. They are stuck in some sort of no-man's land by being a hybrid carrier. Actually not even a hybrid but some sort of mix of legacy, charter and lowcost carrier. This is what is hurting them the most and until they figure it out they will remain a loss making venture.
DeleteOn the other hand, Air Serbia doesn't have this problem. On top of everything the Serbian government is determined to make Air Serbia work which means they will push for all reforms regardless of what the unions think- and they already did this. Dane Kondic has two years to turn the airline around and to make it profitable.
Finally, the region in which Air Serbia will operate is not as competitive as the one where Air Berlin operates. In Germany alone they are faced with Lufthansa, Germanwings and the German Railway. In the north they have Norwegian while airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet have a respectable presence in the region.
Because of all this I believe that Air Berlin is a unique case. Air Serbia will face challenges, that's for sure but at least I am confident enough that its management will be competent enough.
Q400,
I do not know about Cairo but I know that Beirut has a fair share of O&D demand. Some months ago it was published that Beirut was one Turkish Airlines' top connecting market out of Belgrade.
As I said before, let's wait and see what becomes of this whole partnership.
Why so much negativity , forget the political side look
ReplyDeleteat the business side.Business first then politics , that is the problem in that region to much politics.
I am from Serbia and i hope OU wont be dead, just they must change the management and do some reorganizations i think,i love to have competition in Balkans!
ReplyDeleteOT: Adria summer timetable with three new routes
ReplyDeleteLJU-PRG
LJU-WAW
TIA-FRA
http://airlineroute.net/2013/09/10/jp-s14update1/