Belgrade: Etihad Airways, the third-biggest Gulf airline, will sign an initial partnership agreement with unprofitable ...
Belgrade: Etihad Airways, the third-biggest Gulf airline, will sign an initial partnership agreement with unprofitable Belgrade-based JAT Airways in April as Serbia works to save its national carrier from bankruptcy.
The memorandum of understanding, the first step in forming a strategic partnership, will be signed in mid-April in Belgrade, the Finance Ministry said. "We want JAT to become a profitable company and the pride of Serbia," Mladjan Dinkic said, according to the statement. The final accord may be completed two months after that.Serbia plans to take over about EUR170 million ($216 million) of JAT's liabilities, reduce its workforce of 1,300 and add six new aircraft to its fleet as part of the company's overhaul, transportation minister Milutin Mrkonjic said on March 22. The government also started talks with the European Aeronautic Defence & Space, the parent of Airbus, on leasing four planes. The partnership would include a 'complete upgrade' of JAT's fleet and the purchase of new planes, allowing Etihad to take over 49 per cent of Serbian carrier. And turn JAT into a member of the Etihad-led alliance, along with Air Berlin, Aer Lingus, Virgin Australia Airlines. and Air Seychelles, he said. Etihad would also help JAT lease four new planes before the start of the tourist season in June. Etihad and JAT would also start daily flights between Belgrade and Abu Dhabi and introduce flights from Belgrade to Chicago and three other United States destinations with Air Berlin, he said. Dinkic is in the United Arab Emirates, where the Abu Dhabi Development Fund approved a $400 million financing for Serbian agriculture, half for irrigation systems and the rest for cheap lending to Serbian farmers to purchase machinery. Dinkic, who is also the country's economy minister, will meet with representatives of Mubadala Aerospace and Mubadala ATIC, parts of Mubadala Development, which is interested in investing in a EUR4-billion semiconductor plant in Serbia, according to a January 14 report.
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