Vucic presents contract with Etihad Airways to public

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic Thursday presented to the public the takeover contract by which United Arab Emirates' (UAE) national carrier UAE Etihad Airways took over Serbia’s national airline JAT Airways, now Air Serbia.

Vucic said that only the “business plan” part of the contract cannot be disclosed, being a trade secret, and added that he hoped nobody would mind.
“This is an internal document that contains information about what we want to achieve on the market,” Vucic told a press conference at the Palace of Serbia.

He said he was thankful to the UAE partners for making it possible for him to present the contract with Etihad, adding that that contracts such as those would be available to the public on the website of the Serbian government.

Vucic said that the Serbian government had signed the agreement because since 2003, the national carrier had been generating yearly losses of EUR 35 million, although they had been even bigger, and also because only four of its seven Boeings 737-300 were still flying today.
“All governments knew what kind of problem it was. We were well aware about the risks we were taking in transporting passengers,” the prime minister said.

JAT was used for years to employ members of political parties and the airline would have been shut down had the government not taken steps and found a strategic partner, he stated.
"It would have caused economic and social damage and hurt Serbia's reputation, because a national airline is a mirror for the country it belongs to," he noted.

The legal services related to the contract did not have a huge cost, he stated, pointing out that those "important and difficult services cost a total of EUR 270...