The vice president of Airbus’ Eastern European sales branch, Andreas Kramer, has said that the European aircraft manufacturer is ready to finally settle its agreement with Jat Airways which ordered 8 Airbus A319s in 1998. The aircraft, which never arrived, were supposed to be delivered to the airline between 2000 and 2005, with the final payment for the aircraft due in 2017. The order is worth 500 million Dollars while Jat has so far deposited 23.5 million. The airline says that the agreement was extremely damaging to the carrier and was more of a political stunt by the then Government, with the President of Yugoslavia signing the order in France in 1998.Speaking to the media Kramer said, “It is our wish to meet with Jat’s management and discuss possible changes and modifications to the order so the aircraft could finally be delivered. Many parts of the purchasing agreement have to be changed, including the price which is no longer adequate to that of 12 years ago. We realise that Jat does not need this amount of aircraft and does not have the means to finance them. Thus, we have prepared a new solution to the problem”. Jat’s management met with Airbus last month. At that meting Airbus proposed 2 solutions to the problem. One was to slash the number of ordered aircraft from 8 to 2 or 4. However, they would immediately be sold to another airline and Jat would lease the aircraft from that airline, which is the only way Jat could afford to operate the aircraft. The other proposal Airbus brought to the table was for the airline to purchase 1 Airbus A319CJ (corporate jet), which Jat rejected due to its high costs. Jat’s proposal for the carrier to receive 1 ATR72 in exchange for the 23.5 million Dollar deposit was overruled by Airbus.
Jat said that having Airbus aircraft in its fleet would cproduce extra costs as the airline would have to train its pilots and cabin crew for the aircraft while Jat Tehnika does not possess the necessary certificates for the maintenance of Airbuses.
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