Montenegro Airlines: First-ever direct flights from New York to Podgorica to be established

Podgorica, Montenegro (18 August 2016) - A total of 32 new destinations in North America, the Middle East, Northern, Western, and Central Europe, Russia and the Eastern Mediterranean will become available to Montenegrin citizens thanks to the signing of a cooperation agreement (code-share) between Montenegro Airlines (MA) and Air Serbia.

MA Executive Director, Mr Zoran Kostić, stated that the national airline company will have flights to and from Abu Dhabi and New York.

“Analyses show that 20% of Air Serbia passengers have Podgorica as their final destination when they fly from New York, so that Montenegro Airlines succeeds to conquer so far inaccessible markets for us”, Mr Kostić told Pobjeda in an interview.

He also announced the opening of routes to Amsterdam, Athens, Banja Luka, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Bucharest, Istanbul, Larnaca, Milan, Ohrid, Prague, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv, Thessaloniki, and Zagreb.

“MA will use YM codes on all flights”, Mr Kostić explained. Company Executive Director, Ms Daliborka Pejović, believes that the strategic partnership with Etihad is a great opportunity for the promotion of Montenegro as a tourist destination.

“The arrangement with Air Serbia is a chance to find a strategic partner for MA, which is the commitment of the Privatisation Council” Ms Pejović underlined. MA Management has worked intensely on establishing the strategic cooperation with partner companies of Etihad Airways.

“The cooperation agreement will ensure better positioning of Montenegro Airlines on the markets that Etihad Airlines has already won, as well as better conditions for traffic developed by the world-known brand, and it will also ensure better use of Montenegro Airlines resources. Without a doubt, this will be an important impulse for the entire economy, especially for tourism, which was also our aim”, Ms Pejović stated. She recalled that the signing of the agreement was preceded by two years of communication with Etihad representatives, which was intensified by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, that provided quality analysis of national airline company potentials and draft plan on improving organisational management structures.

“The proposal of a new model for organisation and management of existing resources represents an excellent basis for designing new measures of the company reorganisation plan, adjusted to the airline industry trends, as well as the market needs”, Ms Pejović said. She alleged that the Government committed Montenegro Airlines to open new airlines by using existing capacities, and thereby makes Montenegro more accessible to the markets they have not counted on.

“Previous cooperation with Etihad was directed towards this aim, as well as the aim to reintegrate our company on new basis, and thus retain its competitive advantages”, Ms Pejović said. She stressed that service users and specialised agencies recognise MA as a company with modern and safe aircrafts, regular and secure traffic, as well as high-quality personnel.

“Being additionally limited by the so-called “point to point” for passengers, and in the absence of our own codes on flights with the companies with which we implement code-share agreements, the decision to acquire these types of benefits with Air Serbia was obvious. Board of Directors had no dilemma about the Government commitment on the need to seek a strategic partner, which goes along with the agreement signing with Serbian airline company”, Ms Pejović said.

The Executive Director of the company said that MA had transported 346,189 passengers in scheduled traffic up to August 15, realising an increase of 4.86% compared to the same period last year. She added that the company recorded an increase of 3.65% of passengers in code-share traffic, while the total number of passengers was increased by 2%.

“We are proud of these results, which prove that we are a significant generator of tourism and that the MA has significantly contributed to a traffic openness of Montenegro, especially to its availability and connection with new markets”, Ms Pejović concluded.

MA - the busiest airline company at “Nikola Tesla” airport

Ms Pejović said that the signing of a cooperation agreement is realised at a time when official data from the Belgrade “Nikola Tesla” airport show that MA is a foreign airline company that performed the largest number of flights in the first half of this year.

“MA had 1.452 flights on the routes from Podgorica and Tivat to Belgrade and back, which makes it first on a list of nine most common foreign airline companies at Belgrade airport, in front of German company Lufthansa and Hungarian Low-cost company Wizz Air”, Ms Pejović said.

She reported that although the number of MA flights to and from Belgrade is reduced by 5% compared to the same period last year, the national airline company recorded a turnover of 114,953 passengers on Serbian market in the first six months of year, which is an increase of 1,6% compared to last year.

“It means that the cabin occupancy rate of our aircrafts was better than in 2015, and that we have organised traffic with Belgrade efficiently”, Ms Pejović highlighted.