Turkish Airlines "ready to resume B&H talks"

The Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denis Zvizdić, has said Turkish Airlines is ready to resume talks with the government concerning the future of the country's flag carrier. After revealing Turkish's renewed interest in B&H Airlines last week, Mr Zvizdić said the carrier is willing to explore new models of commercial cooperation. "They are prepared for such negotiations to resume and to determine new models of cooperation. I am certain that talks between Turkish Airlines and the Federation government will resume soon and that they will head in the right direction", the Prime Minister said. For its part, Turkish Airlines told EX-YU Aviation News it is "unable to make any comment on this issue for the moment". It added, "As Turkish Airlines, for any major issue to become definite, we have to first inform the Istanbul Stock Exchange in advance".

In late 2008, Turkish Airlines took over a 49% share in B&H. By May 2010 it provided the airline its first jet-engine aircraft, a Boeing 737-400, allowing it to launch flights to Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Dusseldorf. However, this hasty expansion led to the termination of flights to Prague and Berlin due to poor interest. Similarly, newly introduced flights to Podgorica were also cancelled. In 2010 the B737-400 was replaced with an Airbus A319. The airline continued to expand with new flights to Amsterdam, Belgrade and Zagreb, with the latter two cancelled shortly after. In 2011, the airline cancelled its flights to Vienna, Dusseldorf, Stockholm and Gothenburg. The relationship between Turkish Airlines and the Bosnian government deteriorated at the start of 2012 with the A319 taken back by Turkish Airlines, leading to the suspension of its popular Amsterdam route and the grounding of an ATR 72. Turkish relinquished its share in B&H in the summer of 2012 citing disagreements with the government. At the time it said, "Bosnia does not care for B&H Airlines. This was a big disappointment for us. The main reason for the current state of the airline is a complete lack of interest and understanding”.

The former Minister for Transport in the Federation government, Enver Bijedić, says, "I cannot guess what their intentions are this time around but they [Turkish Airlines] made a lot of bad decisions when they were in charge. They probably want to park themselves at Sarajevo Airport in order to secure their position at an appealing European destination [Sarajevo] so they can cover a part of Europe from there". Altan Buyukyılmaz, who Turkish Airlines appointed as B&H's CEO is now the Executive Vice President at Turkish Airlines Technic. B&H Airlines suspended all operations last summer after accumulating significant amounts of debt. Bankruptcy proceeding began last month.