Today, Jat Airways will begin talks to renew its aging fleet of Boeing B737s and ATR72s for the first time since 1998. The delegation from Airbus will be arriving in Belgrade today to discuss the order made by Jat more than a decade ago for 8 Airbus A319s. In 1998 the Yugoslav government made the order which was extremely damaging to the Serbian carrier. This was revealed after the fall of the government in late 2000. The aircrafts were extremely expensive and although Jat has already paid millions for the aircraft it owes much more. Jat no longer wants the aircraft, which were never delivered and in 2006 tried to offer the order to another carrier. No airline was willing to accept and Jat has been left with the order for many years. Now there is hope that the Airbus deal can be resolved. Jat’s management also named the 3 member team which will, in June, travel to the Paris Air Show to carry out negotiations with aircraft manufacturers. The team will be made up of pilot and instructor Nenad Petrović and vice presidents of Jat’s board of directors Tanja Jovanović and Mića Jovanović. Jat will receive a total of 4 new aircraft in 2010.On Monday, June 1, the airline’s management officially passed the plan for a new visual look as well as a new name for the Serbian carrier, to be applied in 2010. The airline’s management also announced that all sectors of Jat will have younger employees replacing current ones, something which will not go down well with the unions within Jat, especially cabin crew. From tomorrow evening Jat will have a new CEO. The Serbian government will, during its usual Thursday afternoon ministry meeting, select and name the airline’s new CEO.
Meanwhile, a resolution to the war between Jat Airways and Turkish charter companies is nowhere in sight. The Turkish government will not issue a licence to Jat to begin charter flights to Antalya while the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate will not issue licenses to a total of 6 Turkish charter companies wanting to begin flights to Belgrade. Many Serbian tourists travelling to Turkey with Jat this summer are anxious to see a resolution to this problem. Jat’s management has said that if the airline does not receive a license for charter flights to Turkey it will apply for a license for regular flights between Belgrade and Antalya. Reports also suggest that the Serbian national carrier has received the green light from the Croatian Civil Aviation Agency to commence flights to Dubrovnik from July this year.
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