The Civil Aviation Agency of Macedonia (CAAM) and national airport operator TAV Macedonia have come out in opposition to any plans by government to establish a new national carrier.
According to the Macedonian Information Agency (MIA), TAV's General Manager, Zoran Krstevski, told a press conference in Struga last week that among other reasons, current market conditions within the former Yugoslav republic were not conducive to any such move.
“An analysis prepared by a consultant [InterVistas Consulting Group] is noting that it is not sustainable to establish a national carrier considering ongoing market conditions, traffic, capacities etc." he said. "The consultant was tasked with making an assessment on whether it is sustainable for Macedonia to set up a flag carrier having in mind costs for staff, investments in planes, negotiations with potential partners for permits, etc."
Echoing Krstevski's sentiments, CAAM General Director, Goran Jandreoski, said another study may be carried out in 2018 provided there is sufficient customer demand to warrant one.
Macedonia initiated plans to establish a successor to the defunct MAT Macedonian Airlines (Skopje) back in 2014. Since its demise, the national market has been taken over by foreign operators with LCC Wizz Air (W6, Budapest) which is currently the most dominant player with a near 56.5% share of all weekly seats into and out of Macedonia according to ch-aviation capacity data. It is followed by Turkish Airlines (TK, Istanbul Airport) (10.68%), Austrian Airlines (OS, Vienna) (6.54%) and Germania Flug (Zurich) and Pegasus Airlines (PC, Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen) each with 4.71%.
