B&H Airlines (Sarajevo) and its current poor state of affairs is the result of a failed Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) experiment Bosnia and Herzegovina's Minister for Transport and Communication, Enver Bijedić, has said. With the national carrier now a pale shadow of its former self, EX-YU Aviation News quotes the minister as telling local television that the Turks had used the airline as a proverbial guinea-pig.
“B&H was used as a guinea pig by Turkish to test the market. In early 2012 the Turkish management ceased payments on loans for the financial lease of two ATR72 aircraft,” he said. “They launched the wrong routes. A total of ten new services were launched and ten were cancelled. As a result, B&H incurred a loss of some half a million Euros. The Turks lied to us.”
Following an international tender in 2008, Turkish Airlines acquired a 49% stake in the Bosnian carrier for USD6.1million. In exchange, the Turks were to have leased two jet aircraft to B&H Air of which only a B737-400 followed by an A319-100 were ever delivered.
In 2012, the relationship collapsed with each side accusing the other of reneging on its part of the agreement. Government was particularly unhappy with the need to prop up the carrier with annual capital injections of EUR3.4million (USD4.69million). In June that year, Turkish Airlines announced to the Istanbul Stock Exchange that it would be returning its shares free of charge to the Bosnian government.
However, two years on, the airline is in an even more precarious state with its market-share out of Sarajevo now sitting at just 4% with losses for 2013 amounting to EUR2million.
In addition, Bijedić said that lease agreements for a pair of ATR72s - signed by a previous administration with Austrian banking conglomerate Hypo Group Alpe Adria (HGAA) - were also damaging to the airline.
B&H Airlines currently serves Banja Luka International, Belgrade Nikola Tesla, Copenhagen Kastrup, Istanbul Atatürk and Zurich.
