A team of experts from the Belgrade airport “Nikola Tesla” will offer the Government of the Republika Srpska a program for the development of the only company for air traffic in the RS by September.
“Glas Srpska” was told by RS Minister of Transport and Communications Nedeljko Čubrilović, who yesterday held a meeting with the general director of the Belgrade airport and his expert team. The Prime Minister of the RS, Radovan Višković, also attended the meeting.
“They presented to us the way in which the airport “Nikola Tesla” experienced development and raised its price before entering into a relationship with the concessionaire. It is a model that has been evaluated as one of the more successful in the wider region. That model is better than those that are did privatization or some other form of financial stability of the airport,” said Čubrilović.
He emphasized that the airport in Banja Luka with its current organization is hardly sustainable and that it needs more investment.
“We have accepted the proposal, that is, the offer of a team of experts from the Belgrade airport to help us in the RS, free of charge, to enter into the process of developing and putting this company on a sound basis, both to the satisfaction of the airport as a public company and from the perspective of the Government of the RS in order to resolve grant for that type of traffic,” Čubrilović emphasized.
The increasing number of passengers at the Banja Luka airport gives a chance for its development, but Čubrilović emphasizes that this is not the solution to all situations.
“Based on low cost companies can hardly be sustainable. By September, the expert team from the Belgrade airport will offer us how we must approach the implementation of the airport development program in Banja Luka. We will provide them with everything they need for their analyzes from the state level and the airport so that they could see the concrete situation as realistically as possible,” Čubrilović said.
“You can’t sit down and write everything in an hour or two. We expect that by September we will have an analysis of where and how to proceed so that our air transport company experiences momentum in development,” Čubrilović concluded.
The meeting was not attended by representatives of the French company “Vansi”, which was previously reported to be preparing documentation for the takeover of the Banja Luka airport.
“They previously held a meeting with us and asked to immediately enter into some kind of privatization, concession. At that time, only information was exchanged and no concrete matters were discussed,” said Čubrilović.
That French company has signed concession contracts with the Government of Serbia, which relate to the development, investment and arrangement of the airport “Nikola Tesla” in Belgrade, over which it has a concession for the duration of 25 years. According to that model, “Vanci” committed to an investment of 700 million euros in this airport.
The company “Aerodromi RS” operated with a loss of almost 600,000 marks last year, and at the same time the airport in Banja Luka recorded a record number of flights and passengers.
“The loss in business is the result of significantly higher expenses for the gross personal income of employees, which compared to the previous year are higher by 730,436 BAM, and increased expenses based on the work contract, which was not accompanied by an adequate increase in income”, it was stated in the report on the business of “Aerodromi” RS”.
