Croatia Airlines and Aegean to renew strategic partnership talks
The Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenković, has said negotiations between Croatia Airlines and Greece’s Aegean Airlines over a strategic partnership agreement would be renewed in the coming months. The comments were made following talks with Greece’s Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in Athens over the weekend. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the Croatian government set a deadline to privatise or recapitalise its national carrier by June 2020, however, the target was scrapped at the onset of the global health emergency. Greece's Aegean Airlines and Spanish regional carrier Air Nostrum had both expressed interest in acquiring shares in Croatia Airlines at the time.
Last January, Aegean said, "Any significant decision on whether or not the company is likely to participate in the next phase of [Croatia Airlines’] privatisation process will be taken in the coming months, following the provision of information and discussions, in accordance with the procedure set by the Republic of Croatia". The next phase of the process was to involve the government announcing a tender for the submission of binding bids and setting out the number of shares it was willing to sell in the company. It previously noted it would offer a stake of up to 70%. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Croatian government has provided financial support to its national airline, while Aegean Airlines has terminated its service between Athens and Zagreb. However, the Croatian carrier faces growing pressure at its main base with low cost carrier Ryanair expanding at a fast pace.
Late last year, the Croatian Minister for Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, said the government would resume Croatia Airlines’ privatisation process once the coronavirus crisis stabilises. “When the situation begins to improve and normalise, we will resume the search for a strategic partner. There was interest, it’s not as if no one was looking at Croatia Airlines, but we will have to wait a bit more”, Mr Butković said at the time. The Croatian carrier recently employed the services of the Boston Consulting Group to draft its post-Covid strategy, which calls for fleet renewal and network optimisation. Croatia Airlines previously said the two would only be possible to achieve jointly with a strategic partner.
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