Aviation expert Alen Scuric talked on N1 on Tuesday about the problems of the state-owned national flag carrier Croatia Airlines.

The pilots’ union wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Sunday, warning about a whole set of problems at Croatia Airlines. In your opinion, what is the biggest problem at the company?

“There is no single biggest problem. There is no management capable of running the company. What we have there right now is an interim CEO for about a year and a half now, and he doesn’t want to make any drastic changes, but the state of the company is such that serious cuts and changes are needed. Pilots and flight attendants have earlier warned in August last year that it was high time to do something, and the prime minister asked them to give him some time, to refrain from going on strike during the (peak tourist) season. It was fair from them to have waited for the end of the year (to go on strike), I myself was against it then, but now I understand where they are coming from. Nothing happened by the end of the year, no collective agreement with employees, no new CEO, nothing.” Scuric said.

Transport Minister, Oleg Butkovic, heard all this information when he met with union representatives, how did he react?

“Well he was not arrogant like some ministers we have had in the past, he said he didn’t know that the situation was so bad, that he would look to us for help. But in the meantime, nobody asked for help from professionals… During the winter, losses were generated, when your airplanes spend too much time getting serviced, you replace them with larger planes like Airbus in which only a portion of capacity is filled, you end up amassing huge losses… And during the pre-season, the company started renting out planes brought in from Slovakia or Bulgaria, and that is extremely expensive. You’re paying for something you should already have, and then the planes are parked in hangars because there are no mechanics to service them. Flights are cancelled on a daily basis, and then you have to reimburse every passenger with €250, pay their hotel, food, give them a new ticket… It adds up to several hundred euros per each passenger,” Scuric added.

What should be done right away?

“In my analysis, I proved that there are many small companies like Croatia Airlines which have managed to turn a profit, and have been doing it more than ten years, they found their niche on the market, they are growing. All you need to do is bring in good management. Why is the government dragging its feet?” Scuric said.

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