Selling Jat to Aeroflot – take two

Government wants to sell Jat to Aeroflot … again

The Serbian Government will try to plug Jat Airways to the Russian national carrier Aeroflot for a second time in 3 years after it confirmed Turkish Airlines was no longer interested in acquiring the Serbian carrier. An unnamed government source told a local newspaper that the Serbian President, Boris Tadić, will promote Jat Airways to his counterpart in Russia on an upcoming visit to the country to take place sometime in the next few months. However, there is little hope the Russian airline would be interested, just like it wasn’t in 2008 when it was believed Aeroflot was going to buy shares in the Serbian carrier once it was put on sale. A planned tender for Jat’s sale, which was to take place in August, now looks unlikely. Not a single airline has replied to the government which sent out facts and figures about Jat to several airlines including Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines. According to the Secretary for Aviation, Miodrag Miljković, the tender will now take place “when sufficient interest is shown”.

The acting CEO of Jat Airways said earlier in the year that the airline must get new aircraft by January 2012. Most of Jat’s Boeing fleet, which is undergoing large scale overhauls at the moment, will be fit to fly for another year and a half before having to go for yet another overhaul in 2013, which is becoming extremely costly.

Aeroflot recently sold its Nordavia subsidiary and has also taken control over 6 other Russian airlines, including the country’s second national carrier, Rossiya, based in Saint Petersburg.