June 4, 2020 - The airports of Tivat and Podgorica are officially open from June 1 for commercial flights for citizens of countries where the rate of active coronavirus cases is less than 25 per 100,000 inhabitants.
As announced, the list will be updated once a week by the National Coordination Body for the Fight against Infectious Diseases. Slovenia currently includes Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Georgia, Switzerland, Albania, Austria, Norway, Monaco, Kosovo, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Denmark, Lithuania, Latvia, Azerbaijan, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Israel. , the Czech Republic, Finland, and Estonia. Among them, however, are not some of the countries leading in the number of passengers on scheduled airlines to Montenegro before the coronavirus, such as Serbia, Russia, Turkey, Great Britain, France, or Italy.
"We can't wait for the first flights and passengers. Welcome."- they said on the Instagram on that occasion from the Airports of Montenegro (ACG) because that company has been practically wholly blocked since March.
However, unofficially, the Airports of Montenegro sees the latest decision of the NKT to allow the resumption of regular air traffic with countries below 25 coronavirus cases per 100,000 inhabitants, established by Montenegrin epidemiologists, as completely useless. It will certainly not lead to a recent resumption of commercial air traffic in our country as it is set now.
"It is illusory to expect any airline to start flying to Montenegro again when it does not know for sure whether these flights will last only one, two or seven days or maybe more because there is always the possibility of an increase in the number in the meantime. Until yesterday, for example, on the list of "allowed" were Ireland and Northern Macedonia, which today, however, are not more on the list of countries whose citizens can enter Montenegro without being quarantined. No one serious in air traffic can, under such "slippery" conditions, where you can, and tomorrow or the day after tomorrow you can't fly, plan the renewal of traffic for Montenegro. The aviation industry is a much more severe and complex activity than that."- said our interlocutor from the top of ACG, who insisted on anonymity.
According to him, the Airports of Montenegro, in cooperation with some of its business partners - foreign airlines and Montenegro Airlines, had previously planned to resume regular commercial air traffic from our airports for the second half of June. With this decision of NKT, everything falls and takes us at least ten steps back from that plan. "
By the way, all countries in the region of former Yugoslavia have already renewed regular air traffic or are doing so under far more liberal and flexible conditions to prevent the possible spread of Covid-19 from Montenegro, which is at the same time, by far the most dependent on air traffic in the context of achieving more tangible commercial results of the summer tourist season as the main driver of the Montenegrin economy.
NKT's decisions not to allow Serbian citizens to enter Montenegro without being quarantined have already caused enormous damage to air traffic with that country as one of the most important markets for both the Airports of Montenegro and the national airline Montenegro Airlines. Montenegro banned landing in Belgrade. The inability to fly on its busiest and at the same time the most profitable routes from Tivat and Podgorica to Belgrade for MA is a "nail in the coffin" of that company burdened with numerous debts. Serbia is one of the most important business partners in our airports. The lines of that company and MA from Belgrade with Montenegro this summer should have been the most frequent in the region of former Yugoslavia and one of the most frequent in all of Eastern Europe.
