Air Serbia's plane
National flag carrier Air Serbia has over the past five years received more than EUR204 million in subsidies from the Serbian budget, the NIN weekly reports in its Aug. 15 edition.
NIN says that in the financial statements for the same period Air Serbia "showed a profit of less than 37 million euros," meaning that without state subsidies it would "pile up a loss of 167 million euros."
According to the weekly, the loss is only slightly smaller than the losses because of which the Serbian government in 2013 decided to liquidate the state-owned company Jat Airways.
Air Serbia is jointly owned by the Republic of Serbia, which holds a 51 percent stake, and the United Arab Emirates' Etihad, which controls a 49 percent stake.
The government, according to NIN, has written off Air Serbia's debt worth dozens of millions of euros to the Nikola Tesla Airport, to which the airline had not paid the airport tax.
Since the French company Vinci recently took over management of the airport, someone will have to pay the airport tax, NIN adds.
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