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| TAV calls for new "Macedonian Airlines" |
TAV Airports Holding, which runs both of Macedonia’s international airports, has said the country is in need of a national carrier which will help develop its aviation industry. Speaking at a recent meeting in Istanbul, the co-founder and CEO of Turkey’s TAV Airports Holding, Sani Sener, said Macedonia is in need of a national airline, hotels and investment in tourism, which would complement the country’s geographical importance. “What is lacking is a national airline. ”Macedonian Airlines" must be established. We have invested in airports and Macedonia should invest in its own airline", Mr. Sener said. He added, "Every country should have an airline. I'm sure it will happen soon and, with it, the number of passengers will rise significantly”.
Over the past twenty years, Macedonia had two national carriers, both of which subsequently declared bankruptcy. Palair Macedonian Airlines was founded in 1991 and became the country’s national carrier but was hit by local competition with the creation of MAT Macedonian Airlines in 1994. As a result, it ceased flying in 1996. MAT was formed in cooperation between JAT Yugoslav Airlines and local businessmen. In 2000, the Macedonian government declared MAT the country’s national carrier owned by two private stakeholders. However, mounting debts as well as political wrangling saw MAT cease operation in September 2009. MAT’s demise was followed by an attempt to relaunch the carrier as Mat Airways several years later, however, it too failed.
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| Palair - Macedonia's first national airlines |
Wizz Air is currently Macedonia’s busiest airline with two aircraft based in Skopje. However, Mr. Sener believes Macedonia has great potential and a national carrier would help further develop the country’s two airports. “We operate two airports in Macedonia which are very important to us because Macedonia and Turkey have deep historical ties and Macedonia is located in the middle of Europe. It is the door to the Balkans. I can surely say that Macedonia will soon join the European Union, even before Turkey. Macedonia's membership in the EU is very important, not only from a social point of view but also from an economic point of view, which means that we believe in the future of Macedonia”. The CEO says TAV’s aim is to significantly boost passenger numbers by the end of the year, adding that Skopje Airport is estimated to handle some 1.2 million passengers by the end 2014.
you're early today :-)
ReplyDeleteHow come this was posted before 0900 CET? :-)
ReplyDeletePotentially bigger news will come later in the day but it is not certain at this point. It doesn't hurt if its half an hour early :)
DeletePlease give us a hint!
DeleteHopefully we should get a ruling from the European Commission on the Adria state aid case today.
DeleteMacedonia doesn't need a national carrier, my personal opinion, Wizz is doing a great job there!
DeleteP.S. Good luck, Adria, keep my fingers crossed and hope everything goes well for them!
what is the source for the info. about eu commision?
DeleteA decision will be made in the first half of June as the airline confirmed earlier last month. EU Commission decisions are made public each Friday. As I said, it is not going to necessarily happen today. The EC is yet to issue its official decisions summary, it does so later in the day.
DeleteNisam baš u toku sa ovom situacijom... Da li bi neko mogao da mi kaže o čemu se radi? Znam da je Ryanair bio protiv Adrije ali nisam baš upućen
Delete^ http://exyuaviation.blogspot.com/2013/10/adria-aid-investigation-ongoing.html
DeleteSo the decision will be made next Friday, I suppose. Hope European Comission won't punish Adria and Slovenia!
DeleteAlthough there were several state aid decisions relating to Slovenian companies this week, none were related to Adria.
DeleteI agree Macedonia needs a national airline. It's great Wizz Air is here but they are subsidized and those subsidies can end as soon as a change in government happens. A national airline would ensure more growth.
ReplyDeleteWizz Air - Macedonian carrier from Hungary :D
DeleteAir Serbia Dubrovnik-Beograd:
ReplyDeleteThu 5.6. ATR72 pax 28 of 66 = 42,4%
Wed 4.6. B737-300 pax 35 of 128 = 27,3%
Tue 3.6. B737-300 pax 51 of 128 = 39,8%
All together 114 of 322 = 35,4%
Very very very low LF! Especially for Dubrovnik. Other companies have around 90% even Croatia Airlines from Dubrovnik on those days. And Air Serbia will be profitable till end of the year? How???
Kondic said it, and you know him, he is a miracle worker, perhaps he can also part sea, or land, so Serbia finally has an access to open sea.
DeleteYou are publishing misleading information. Maybe just because you don't know some important facts, in that case accept my apologies. Here is the truth: Air Serbia Thu flight was scheduled to operate with ATR and then they change it (last min) to B737 so load factor is 39,8%(51/128), but actually it was 77,2% (51/66). Flight on Wed was added to the system recently so there was not enough time to sell the tickets.
DeleteThose are actually good numbers and all transits. Dubrovnik is a seasonal summer route for tourists. Tourists are just starting to go from Belgrade to Dubrovnik and have not started returning yet. Those passengers from Dubrovnik are currently transit passengers via Belgrade going onwards. In a week when the first batch of tourists that arrived from Belgrade start leaving from Dubrovnik you will see planes filled to capacity..
DeleteLf is about profitability. If you have to change ATR to 737 and have just 39.8% LF because of it than you loose money.
DeleteSame thing is with opening flights in last second. If because of opening flights in last second your LF is so bad you should not do it because you are loosing money!!! So that is bad management.
I agree, those changes and opening flights in last second are making losses. I just wanted to point out that flights to Dubrovnik for all companies are highly profitable and that will be same with Air Serbia flights. Dubrovnik has almost 1,6 mil. passengers per year, you can just imagine how load factors are high.
DeleteIt would be nice if someone can provide info about load factor from Belgrade to Dubrovnik.
Worry not, once YU-ALT is back in regular service DBV will see a better lf. ;)
DeleteThe bird is back in Belgrade so it's going to happen any day now.
If Mr. Sener is so clever, he should take some money and establish TAV Airline of Macedonia. The taxpayers of Macedonia have bleeded too much alreday for experiments.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Macedonia might not need a national carrier, but it certainly does need better connections to important hubs such as Frankfurt, London, Paris without the extra step of transferring through ZAG or LJU for example. WizzAir I think is doing great job with most of the time reasonable prices for flying to their destinations from SKP.
ReplyDeleteOn a separate note, last week I visited SKP new terminal for first time, very roomy but one thing that is missing is a place on the 2nd floor where ppl can see planes operations, the architects had to take care of that when they were designing the terminal.
Imigration and gates, now you can get the view.only when.you await to.board a flight,.no.space.for.observation platform,
DeleteExYu and what aobut Avioimpex? You did not mention that company and they had impressive number of destinations and regular flights. I thing they had fleet of 4 or even 5 MD82 and 83 in one point.
ReplyDeleteAvioimpex wasn't a flag carrier, I was referring only to Macedonia's two national airlines :)
DeleteWell i think a national carrier has a good and a bad side... the bad side we allready see in the history.. to much money spent in airlines which just cant hold up... but on the other side macedonia needs a national carrier that can represent macedonia in the world and connect Skopje to big hubs like Frankfurt/Munich Paris London Moscow Barcelona and also some smaller Citys for transit passangers and Ohrid to bring some Tourists from eastern europe like ljubjana belgrade warsaw prague etc.
ReplyDeleteEtablishing a new macedonian carrier surley wont be easy and first with some losts but with good promotion and europe wide marketing i think this time it could really work
Hi Aleks, I agree that Macedonia needs stronger connections to European hubs but having a national carrier is another story, even Slovenia and Croatia are having huge difficulties trying to keep Adria and Croatia Airlines alive, and they're both countries with higher standard and much more developed tourism than Macedonia
DeleteOT: looks like that JP will fly from Bydgoszcz to Munich on daily basis from winter on... as mentioned they will increase Lodz - Munich on doubble daily freqvency as well within winter timetable. (reports gazeta.pl)
ReplyDeleteJU is once again encountering serious fleet shortage. Now they use Aviolet branded aircraft on a scheduled flight (this morning BEG-ARN-BEG)
ReplyDeleteThey used Aviolet's 737-300 yesterday also. I think it was to Dusseldorf.
DeleteTrue, shortage again.... YU-APB broke down last night and stayed in FCO.
DeleteTrue -2xA319 ....SAA will soon become API and will rejoin the fleet in next 7 days
DeleteWill the -SAB alone be enough for the Abu Dhabi rotations?
DeleteNo, SAB will be re-registred too....so all A319 fleet can operate AUH
DeleteEX-YU Aviation zašto ignorirate uvođenje direktnih letova iz Dohe za Zagreb? :)
ReplyDeleteIt's not being ignored of course. It is planned for tomorrow. It's just that sometimes news, like this one, is pre-scheduled and planned :)
DeleteEX-YU thank you :)
Delete@ex You Admin,
ReplyDeleteU should consider following stories for your blog,
Construction of new terminals, Split - works starting in September, and October, Dubrovnik same as Split, Ljubljana - strong likelihood of 2nd terminal, Belgrade 3rd also likelihood although we both know it might not happen, finsihed terminals at Skopje and Pristina, new Terminal at Zagreb, you can make it about Ex-Yu infrastructure and new terminals across Ex-yu under construction and already built.
Another about carriers that are coming to ex-Yu, and potential new lines.
Perhaps one about ATC across the region, or even military airfroces across the region and economic impact on overall infrastructure and lack of investment as a result of recession.
I just loved MAT livery, Macedonian flag looked good on both B737 and CRJ900 tail.
ReplyDeleteSame here too.
DeleteAnd Palair Macedonian, same or even better than IN.
Especially the 'all in red' livery.
And if someone can explain me this photo?
ReplyDeletehttp://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/378448_253820777999612_1694361977_n.jpg
It is not a real photograph. It was photo-shopped.
DeleteThe plan was for Palair to establish an agreement with Malaysia Airlines to operate one stop flights between Macedonia and Australia using DC-10s. One of my friend's father was working as a consultant representing Malaysia Airlines in Macedonia at the time. Plans never came into fruition due to Palair's collapse.
DeleteThis is the only source here: http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/mils/1996/96-04-22.mils.html#01
JP will stay alive, it has said the father of my friend he is a manager by AUA in Innsbruck.
ReplyDeletePlease stop spamming each and every thread with your radio Mileva information and semi-literate English/Serbian.
DeleteI think today it is to expensive to have stateown airline company, Macedonia can go for partnership with Air Serbia, Adria Airways, ..... with exact business order how they see to develop macedonian aircraft traffic and very important not to settle just wishies but also in case the market will not bring profit how they will support it!
ReplyDeleteBullsh.. Macedonia definitely does not needs a state carrier. In no way. A Carrier is not just a hobby or a tool to play with
ReplyDelete