Talks between the Bosnian government and German investor MD Mitteldeutsche Tourismus Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (MDTE) concerning the future of B&H Airlines (Sarajevo) employees and/or a new Bosnian airline have collapsed.
According to EX-YU Aviation News, Bosnian Minister for Transport and Communication, Denis Lasić told Faktor.ba that his government had decided to withdraw from negotiations after a review of MDTE's track record in the aviation industry was undertaken.
"When we checked over the German company, who they are and what they do, we ended talks with them," he said.
MDTE leadership has been involved in a number of airlines in the past, most recently Rostock Airways (Rostock) and Air Alps (Innsbruck), both of which are now defunct.
Last month, one of MDTE's key backers, Norbert Dotterweich, revealed that his firm was not in talks to take over the bankrupt Bosnian national carrier, but rather was determining the preconditions necessary for the establishment and development of a new airline in the former Yugoslav republic.
Dotterweich alluded to the setting up of a new privately-owned carrier based out of Sarajevo by the end of the year which would operate B737 Next Gens as well as Dash 8-300s on a foreign Air Operators Certificate (AOC) initially.
In a statement issued to ch-aviation on October 20, MDTE's Roland Ehrsam says that the talks with the Bosnian government ended by the end of August already and not only in early October. He says that MDTE is however still planning to go ahead with own plans for a scheduled operation from Sarajevo regardless of whether or not MDTE will receive government support, but that the project's launch would have to be delayed from the original planned December 2015 start date because of "delays in the planned acquisition of a regional carrier by MDTE", whose identity is not yet publicly known.
