New airline SmileAir to be founded in Croatia

The formation of a new airline, called SmileAir, is underway in Croatia, and the flights are to be launched in the spring of 2020, Tango Six learns.

The company plans to start its operations with Embraer E-190 planes with 100 seats, whereas the plan is to get an Airbus A321 with 214 seats at a later stage, as well as an A330 in the long term.

Within three years of its formation, the company plans to have a fleet of five planes. The owners of SmileAir believe that the E-190 is an ideal plane for year-round operations, whereas the A321 would be used for seasonal flights.

The company will carry out ACMI and wet lease operations, maintain regular charter and leisure lines, as well as ad hoc charters, and the destinations planned are located in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Iceland.

The company also plans to lease crews to companies which need them, as well as to carry out dump lease operations, where the flight crew, the plane, the maintenance and the insurance, but not the cabin crew, are leased per hour.

Nino Boric, the owner of AvioNova (a member of ISTAT), headquartered in Florida, and one of the initiators of this project, says that their main goal is to take over a part of the leisure market in the Adriatic, which is 82% in the hands of foreigners in the top season.

Boric also added that they would not risk it and that they would initially keep the capacities small and then grow generically. He emphasizes that they would apply for the funds provided by the Croatian tourism community and local tourism communities for joint advertising in air transport and that he had contacts with numerous tourism organizations and hotel operators, which will take part in the project.

SmileAir

Embraer

Airbus

AvioNova

Croatian airline

new Croatian airline

Nino Boric

A321

E 190

A330