Air Montengro - from the sale of resources to applications for the director

Among the seven names that have so far entered the competition for the selection of the new executive director of the national airline Air Montenegro, the most attention was attracted by two people who had previously led national airlines in the Java region, namely the former CEO of Croatia Airlines. Krešimir Kučko i Nebojsa Starcevic, former director of the restructured Serbian national airline JAT Airways, which now operates under the name Air Serbia.

In addition to the two of them, applications were sent by Irfan Demirovic from Serbia, Igor Pavićević i Andjela Celebic from Montenegro, Thomas Cano Pasquale from Spain, Džems Uljarević from Australia.

The competition for the election of the director of Air Montenegro was announced on March 19. Former director Predrag Todorović on February 21, he submitted to the Board of Directors and the Ministry of Capital Investments (MKI) a request for mutual termination of the contract. The government appointed last week on the proposal of the MKI Dragan Frantov Nikolić for acting executive director until the election of a new one.

Air Montenegro ended last year with a loss of 4,9 million euros, which, as announced by the company, was expected.

As the most serious candidates for the position of executive director of the new national airline, according to unofficial information from "Vijesti", which had a difficult business start last year, Starčević and especially Kučko figure.

Starčević, a lawyer with a degree in law, came to the position of the first man of the then failing, but still very strong in terms of resources, state airline JAT Airways as a member of the Serbian Reconstruction Movement. Under his baton, JAT was restructured and many important parts were separated from its composition, such as the JAT Tehnika company specialized in aircraft maintenance and overhaul, the Pilot Academy in Vršac and other segments that were not closely related to commercial air traffic. Starčević also drastically reduced JAT's passenger aircraft fleet at the time, selling all the older aircraft and reducing the company to a smaller regional air carrier. After JAT, which he left in considerable debt and with a number of unresolved problems, Starčević was appointed director of the Civil Aviation Directorate of Serbia. The national airline, which in the meantime continued to stumble economically and commercially in 2013, was brought down by the new Serbian government led by the Serbian Progressive Party Aleksandar Vučić soon restructured in a business-controversial and costly arrangement for the citizens of Serbia with the Etihad company from Abu Dhabi and turned it into the current Serbian state airline Air Serbia.

Kučko, who is said to be very close to the Croatian president and the former leader of the SDP in Croatia Zoran Milanović, is a graduate economist from Zagreb who has been in commercial aviation for more than three decades. His first job was in the early 90s in the then newly formed Croatian national airline Croatia Airlines, where he performed the duties of director of representative offices in several European countries, as well as sales manager. From September 2012 to October 2017, he was the CEO of Croatia Airlines, and his mandate was marked by the company's restructuring and return to positive business after a number of years with significant losses. However, the way in which Kučko Croatia Airlines brought it into relatively thin positive balances was characterized primarily by the large sale of assets and other forms of resources of that company, such as extremely valuable slots at one of the busiest European airports - London Heathrow. During his mandate, this air carrier sold and leased (so-called sell and leaseback arrangement) several of its planes and engines, as well as the very profitable bus company "Pleso Prijevost", which had a monopoly on transport between Zagreb and Split airports and the center of those cities. Although he made several successful moves, Kučka's tenure at the head of Croatia Airlines was marked by the stagnation of that company and the decline of its share in the number of transported passengers in Croatia and the region of the former Yugoslavia. For this reason, many people familiar with the aviation industry in the area of ​​the former Yugoslavia do not see Kuček as a particularly successful manager of a national airline company.

From November 2017 to October 2020, Kuchko was the head of Bahrain's national airline, Gulf Air, and his term as CEO was terminated without a detailed explanation as to why this happened before the expiration of the five-year business plan that Kuchko proposed when he was appointed duty of director. He currently serves as an advisor to the members of the board of directors of that airline.

Miroshnikov was late with the application

Apply for the announced competition sent out Yuri Miroshnikov from Ukraine, but she was not accepted. This is due to the fact that he only sent the CV to the e-mail before the deadline.

According to data from Linkedin, in the early 90s Miroshnikov worked in the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine, and after that for almost three decades he held high management positions in the national airline of Ukraine International Airlines, of which he was its president and CEO for 15 years. .

He is now a member of the Board of Directors of Ukraine International Airlines, which has not flown since the beginning of the Russian aggression against that country on February 24.