"Eho" made 30 flights in four days

The new Air Montenegro aircraft, the Embraer E195 (4O-AOE), which was put into service on July 4, has made 30 flights in the past four days, according to data received by "Vijesti" from the national airline.

This aircraft, named "Eho", makes between three and four rotations daily on various routes operating from Podgorica airport and records a very good occupancy of the passenger cabin. For example, on Sunday, July 6, it made four rotations from Podgorica airport in less than 24 hours, or a total of eight flights.

At 7.43:195 in the morning, this E9.48 flew to Belgrade, from where it returned to Podgorica at 10.34:12.02 a.m. and at 13.18:14.45 a.m. it flew to Prague, where it arrived at 17.10:19.41 p.m. The plane took off from the capital of the Czech Republic at 40:22.45 p.m., arrived at 15:8 p.m. and about forty minutes later flew to Istanbul, where it arrived at 38:XNUMX p.m. An hour later, it took off from Istanbul back to Podgorica, where it landed at XNUMX:XNUMX p.m. - in time to complete another rotation on the Podgorica-Belgrade-Podgorica route. XNUMX-AOE landed at Podgorica airport that evening at XNUMX:XNUMX p.m., thus ending an intense day for it, in which, in a XNUMX-hour working interval, the plane spent a total of XNUMX hours and XNUMX minutes in the air.

According to data that Vijesti received from Air Montenegro, this E195 also had a very good overall average occupancy of the passenger cabin, which can accommodate a maximum of 118 passengers. On eight flights on July 6, the new aircraft in the national carrier's fleet transported a total of 846 passengers, which gives a very respectable average so-called load factor of 89,6 percent, comparable to what economically very efficient low-cost airlines such as Ryanair or Wizz Air strive for in that category. Moreover, some of the flights, such as the return morning flight from Belgrade to Podgorica, were, as the company says, 100 percent full, which shows that passengers were not subject to the narrative about the alleged insecurity of this aircraft that is being marketed to a part of the Montenegrin public. Since entering regular service, aircraft 4O-AOE has made about thirty flights in regular and charter traffic and landed at airports in Podgorica, Rome, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Tirana, Brno, Prague, Istanbul, Paris and Košice.

This “Embraer E195” was recently taken on a three-year dry lease by the national airline Air Montenegro. The fact that this aircraft, which was previously registered in Denmark, is fully technically sound and airworthy has been officially confirmed by the supreme aviation authority in the country, the Civil Aviation Agency of Montenegro (CAA), which on July 4 entered this “Embraer” into the Civil Aircraft Register of Montenegro and issued it with a certificate of airworthiness. Inspectors and experts from the CAA, which is an independent regulatory and supervisory body, had previously thoroughly inspected this E195 at the airport in Podgorica for almost two weeks, as well as meticulously combed through all its extensive accompanying technical documentation, which testifies to its maintenance and servicing from the moment the aircraft rolled off the production lines of the Embraer factory in Brazil in early summer 2008 until today. The CAA stated on this occasion that their team "made decisions professionally, independently and in accordance with regulations, guided by the basic principle that safety is the absolute priority."

"Eho" is engaged in the fleet of the national airline under the so-called dry lease arrangement, which implies that it will be flown by Air Montenegro's flight crew, and serviced and maintained by the cabin crew, or technical staff of the national airline. For the use of the aircraft, Air Montenegro will pay its owner a rental fee, the amount of which varies depending on the level of utilization of the aircraft (the number of so-called cycles, or flight hours).