Belgrade carrier intends starting no-frills operation with four ATR 72s by year end
Jat Airways has postponed its plan to launch a low-cost subsidiary due to delays in securing governmental approval.
Belgrade-based Jat - flag carrier for Serbia and Montenegro - drew up a proposal to transfer its domestic and regional routes to a new no-frills operation, Interlink, starting this week. However, a low turnout in last year's elections left Serbia without a president and the proposal still awaits government approval.
Jat now expects to launch Interlink towards the end of the year. The airline's senior vice-president for traffic rights, Slobodan Babic, says Interlink will be given its own management board and will operate the airline's four ATR 72 turboprops under its own air operator's certificate.
"The new airline will be aggressive in the market and will take traffic from the buses, connecting Balkan cities to Belgrade and eventually to each other," he says. Babic says agreements with pilots and airports are in place and have been put on hold pending final approval from the Serbian-Montenegrin government, which owns Jat. Babic says extra routes to Belgrade, including from points in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, are also likely to be added to Interlink's offering, which will be based on existing Jat routes to domestic and regional cities. Jat is in talks to secure air traffic rights to Pristina, capital of the United Nations-administered Serbian province of Kosovo.
Babic says the creation of a "lean, mean" Interlink will force the rest of Jat to focus on cost-cutting. Jat expects to have completed its fleet rationalisation programme by the end of this year, leaving only the Interlink ATRs and two types of Boeing 737s for European routes. The airline took delivery of its third leased 144-seat 737-400 last month and plans to retire its remaining two airworthy Boeing 727s, one McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and six DC-9s once they are returned from lease in Africa.
Jat recently signed codeshare agreements with Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa for routes between Belgrade and Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna, on which the 737-400s will be deployed. Babic says the preceding audit is a "tool to change the behaviour of our personnel and raise our standards to western European levels". Lufthansa Consulting is also advising Jat on strategy, but Babic insists closer links to Star Alliance are not being discussed.
Jat is negotiating similar agreements with Air France and Alitalia and expects to "be connected to all the alliances", he adds.
JUSTIN WASTNAGE / BELGRADE
Source: Flight International
