Sky Srpska!

During the last year the government of Republika Srpska, an entity wihin Bosnia and Herzegovina, has announced the creation of its own airline to be named Sky Srpska. The project recently received the green light for the government and new developments have since occurred which could see the airline take off from its base in Banja Luka (pictured above) by the beginning of next year. Yesterday the government of Republika Srpska announced that Sky Srpska would soon receive 2 new, smaller, aircraft for which $24.5 million dollars (USD) will be allocated from the entity’s budget. The two aircraft will have a capacity of 50 seats and will be purchased via credit. The manufacturer of the aircraft has not been chosen however the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, a few months ago hinted they could come from the American “General electric”. There is no word on which destinations would be served by the airline although whatever destinations are chosen they will have to wait until next year as it will take time until the aircraft are dispatched to the airline. The CEO of Sky Srpska has announced that future development plan of the airline will soon be made public.

The government hopes to, by starting up Sky Srpska, bring life to Banja Luka Airport which despite its renovated runway, control tower and terminal has extremely low traffic – only served by Serbia’s Jat Airways (to Belgrade), Bosnia’s B&H Airlines (to Zurich) and Austrojet (to Salzburg).

Republika Srpska used to have a national airline from 1999 until 2003. Air Srpska was owned by Jat Airways and used two of its ATR72s for operations to Belgrade, St. Gallen/Altenrhein, Vienna and Zurich. However Jat withdrew its aircraft from the airline in 2003 and therefore all operations ceased. Although Air Srpska was not a large airline, it was extremely unique having major agreements with airlines such as Swiss Air as well as being part of IATA (unusual for a small regional airline) , however this was mostly achieved due to Jat’s lobbying and support.