MAT Macedonian Airlines winter 2008/09Farewelling three destinations

On October 25, 2008 MAT Macedonian Airlines, the national airline of Macedonia will begin with its winter schedule. As usual for this time of the year MAT will be decreasing its regular frequencies. This winter it will operate flights using 3 aircraft (2 newly leased Boeing B737-500 aircraft and a CRJ-900).

From Skopje MAT will be ending its flights to Amsterdam, Berlin and Hamburg. Flight IN451 was operated once a week to Amsterdam while flight IN320 to Berlin was operated twice a week. Flights to Hamburg were also operated twice a week. Despite this, MAT will continue flights to Germany by continuing services to Dusseldorf which will operate twice a week using a B737-500. Services to Istanbul which were operated 6 times a week will now be operated twice a week using the CRJ-900. Flights to Rome will continue to be operated twice a week using the airline’s both aircraft types. Flights to Vienna will continue operating 5 times a week with a daily code share flight serviced by Austrian Airlines. There will be 11 weekly flights to Zurich with another 2 flights operated in a code share by Helvetic.

From Ohrid the Sunday flight to Vienna will continue to run via Skopje. Flights to Zurich will be maintained once a week while the flight to Amsterdam which was operated via Skopje ends as mentioned above. Currently in the preliminary schedule there is no news of new destinations.

Any related updates will be posted. Any question our readers might have regarding the new schedule can be posted by using the “comments” option or contacting us using our e-mail address. Soon Adria Airways’ 2008/09 winter schedule will be published on the blog.

Read more

Good results for Macedonian airports in August as MAT gets warning

The two international airports in Macedonia, Skopje and Ohrid, which were recently taken under the management of the Turkish company TAB have reported good passenger results for August 2008. With a total of 84.180 passengers transported, August had the most frequencies this year according to the number of passengers, from which 52.000 (62%) were on departure. Compared to the same period last year, the number of passengers increased by 5% and for the period from January to August a total of 7.2%. On destinations with scheduled lines, in the period between January and August, the most frequent were Vienna and Zurich, while the biggest increase in the number of passengers compared to last year was seen on lines towards Ljubljana, Istanbul, Budapest and Zagreb.

Meanwhile Macedonian Airports (the handling and operational company of Skopje and Ohrid airport) will stop providing services to the national carrier MAT until that company fulfils its current obligations towards Macedonian Airports. MAT currently owes the company a total of 42.028.109 Macedonian denars (MKD) which is approximately 682.700 Euros. Several judicial proceedings against MAT are currently in progress. MAT has in the past been in trouble for not satisfying agreements with Jat Airways (dispute with Boeing 737 lease) and Embraer (dispute with new aircraft delivered which was later seized by Embraer).

Read more

Turks new owners of airports in Macedonia with ambitious plans

The Turkish company TAB is the new owner of Skopje and Ohrid airports (as well as all other airports in Macedonia) and will operate the two bases until 2028. The Macedonian government determined that TAB made the best offer and expect the company to bring the two airports to world standards within the next 20 years as well as increase the capacity of the airports and improve infrastructure.

The Turkish company will also build a new cargo centre at Štip Airport located in Eastern Macedonia. It is planed for Štip to become an alternative airport for public use with the chance for it to become the main airport in Macedonia. At Štip Airport a new runway, 2 hangers for cargo and hangers for aircraft will be built. At Macedonia’s main airport, Alexander the Great, in Skopje, TAB plans to build a new airport terminal, parking spaces, extend the existing runway so the airport could have the capacity to serve aircraft of all types, install a new navigation ground system, build a new cargo terminal and build a new fire prevention centre. Meanwhile at Ohrid Airport TAB plans to reconstruct the parking, renovate the cargo terminal and administrations building and will install new systems so the airport can be brought up to world standards.

Read more

MAT prepares to accept new aircraft

MAT Macedonian Airlines is preparing to welcome to its 2 member fleet a Boeing 737-500, the second such type in the airlines fleet. It follows only weeks after the delivery of the first B737-500 under the registration Z3-AAH (pictured above). The aircraft were produced in 1991 and were both first operated by the then national airline of Belgium, Sabena until its bankruptcy in 2001. The aircraft were then operated by South African airline Nationwide. The newest addition to the fleet has a 126 seat capacity divided in two cabin classes (business and economy) and 4 tons capacity for baggage and cargo. With this model and its seat capacity the aircraft will mainly operate on MAT’s traditional destinations such as Zurich, Rome and Dusseldorf. With the two new additions of Boeing aircraft, MAT is responding to the passenger and destination demand, planning to extend its operations to new ones in Germany and Northern Italy.

The livery is slightly modified to the old Boeing 737-300 fleet the airline use to operate until late last year. Like the Bombardier (the third member of the fleet) the engines have received a red colour and the MAT letters have been darkened.

Read more

MAT adds new plane to fleet

The Macedonian national air carrier, MAT, has purchased a Boeing 737-500, which has already been registered in Macedonia under Z3-AAH.The aircraft embarked on its first commercial flight from its base in Skopje to Zurich, Switzerland. MAT received a loan to buy the 126 seat Boeing 737-500 aircraft with MAT and PK Aviation securing the down-payment for the loan. MAT representatives have said that the airline plans to buy another aircraft next month.

MAT owns one CRJ-900 and has one leased Boeing 737-500. In total there fleet, with the new aircraft, amounts to three. The average age of the airlines fleet is young - just below 7 years. MAT carries out operations to 8 destinations from its bases in Skopje and Ohrid however it operates no flights to any of the EX-YU republic except its own.

Read more

New flights from Ohrid

Ohrid St.Paul the Apostole Airport, the second largest in Macedonia, has recently added Skywings as one of the airlines which operate to the airport. The airline commenced services recently between Ohrid and Dusseldorf, Germany. This charter flight will operate once a week, on Sunday, during the 2008 summer season. Six airlines now fly to Ohrid with two operating exclusively summer charters. These are, the airline mentioned above and Sun d'Or International Airlines operating charters to Tel Aviv. Compared to last year, Ohrid Airport this year does not have charters to Greece due to a ban imposed on Macedonian airlines to fly to Greece because of a name dispute as well as the absence of flights to Belgrade which were operated last year by Jat Airways. Read more