Air Montenegro buys third aircraft, fourth on the way

The national airline Air Montenegro becomes the owner of a third Embraer E195 aircraft, which it purchased for $11 million.

The aircraft, registration number 4O-AOE, entered the Air Montenegro fleet last year under a dry lease agreement. This arrangement involves leasing only the aircraft, without crew, maintenance and insurance, all of which were provided by Air Montenegro.

"The company has signed a contract to purchase this aircraft from its current owner for 11 million US dollars. The aircraft was registered in the Montenegrin Civil Aircraft Register on July 4 last year and has been participating in operations since then, together with the remaining two E195 aircraft in the fleet. The company is very satisfied with its performance and reliability in operation," Vuk Stojanović, the director of the national airline, told "Vijesti" today.

He pointed out that during the purchase negotiations with the owner of this aircraft, Air Montenegro "provided additional financial benefits through exemption from paying part of the lease for April and May, which reduced the total value of the arrangement by more than 300.000 US dollars."

"Transferring the aircraft to the company's ownership will further improve flexibility in fleet management, while aircraft ownership is a more financially favorable exploitation model in the long term compared to leasing," said Stojanović, adding that Air Montenegro is purchasing this aircraft with its own funds, without any state aid.

He emphasized that the decision to purchase this aircraft was preceded by a detailed analysis that confirmed the economic justification of this investment. After that, the Board of Directors adopted the purchase proposal, while the Government of Montenegro gave formal approval for the implementation of this transaction in April.

"During the next week, all financial and administrative procedures with the current owner will be completed, after which Air Montenegro will become the owner of all three aircraft with which it currently operates regular traffic," he concluded.

The aircraft with the designation 4O-AOE (popularly called “Echo” after the English radio transliteration of the last letter in its registration) is the same age as the oldest of the two current E195s owned by Air Montenegro – aircraft 4O-AOA. It rolled off the production line of the Embraer factory in São José dos Campos, Brazil, in the summer of 2008, just four places further down the series after today’s Air Montenegro “Alfa”. This E195 began flying on 23 June 2008 when it was handed over to its first user – the British regional company Flybe, for whom it flew with short interruptions until 2018. After that, for half a year in 2019, this aircraft flew for the Irish carrier Stobart Air, and in June of that year it entered the fleet of the Danish company Great Dane Airlines, which leased it to the Vietnamese carrier Bamboo Airways in 2020–2021, after which the aircraft returned to Great Dane Airlines. After the bankruptcy of the Danish company in October 2021, this aircraft was grounded and stored first in Copenhagen, then in Billund, Denmark, from where it was later transferred for maintenance and service first to Katowice, and later to Warsaw, Poland.

Since this aircraft had flown very little in the previous four years before it was taken on the then-agreed three-year dry lease last year, Air Montenegro carried out a detailed inspection of it in all aspects, in which they also engaged experts from Embraer, namely the Polish company "WYZL-2" in Bydgoszcz, which is certified for the so-called PART-145 maintenance of aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer, namely the E170/190 series aircraft.

While this was going on, some of the Montenegrin public expressed doubts about this aircraft, which, according to allegations made in the media and on social networks at the time by Captain Nikola Pavlićević, one of the former pilots of Montenegro Airlines and Air Montenegro, allegedly has deficient accompanying technical documentation that should provide detailed evidence of its maintenance and all regular service or possible extraordinary repair procedures that were performed on it during the use of this aircraft. However, after detailed checks conducted by inspectors and experts of the Civil Aviation Agency of Montenegro, which is an independent regulatory and supervisory body, i.e. a kind of supreme civil aviation authority in the country, this proved to be unfounded and it was confirmed that this E195 is in excellent technical condition. Namely, after the plane flew to Montenegro last year, CAA inspectors thoroughly inspected this E195 at the airport in Podgorica, "down to the last screw", as well as combed through all its extensive accompanying technical documentation that testifies to its maintenance and servicing from the moment the plane rolled off the production lines of the Embraer factory in Brazil in the summer of 2008 until today. The CAA then gave the green light for the entry of this plane into the Montenegrin civil aircraft register and the issuance of a certificate of airworthiness, and since July 4 last year it has been flying for Air Montenegro as 4O-AOE, where it has proven to be an extremely reliable and safe aircraft, thus denying in practice the earlier doubts of some of the media and the public.

The national airline will soon expand its fleet with the arrival of another, fourth Embraer E195 aircraft. This aircraft is currently at the service center in Saarbrücken, Germany, where final preparations for delivery to Air Montenegro are being completed, and its arrival in Montenegro is expected by the end of June.

The dry lease agreement, under which Air Montenegro leases an aircraft for which it then provides crew, maintenance and insurance, was concluded with the renowned leasing company "TrueNoord" from the Netherlands, specialized in leasing passenger aircraft for regional air traffic, and which owns this E195, which was previously registered in the Danish register under the registration number OY-NZO. It has been grounded and stored in Saarbrücken, Germany, since September last year. Previously, the aircraft, which rolled off the production line in October 2011, flew for the Brazilian airline "Azul", which used it under the registration number PR-AYX until March 2023.

This aircraft flew from Saarbrücken to Norwich in the UK about ten days ago, where it was repainted from Azul's colours to white, and then later painted with Air Montenegro's colours. The aircraft is currently undergoing final preparations in Saarbrücken before it flies to Podgorica under the Montenegrin registration 4O-AOI ("India") and joins the national airline's fleet.