Mr. Fahrudin Hamidi, President of the Management Board and Executive Director of the Air Navigation Services at M-NAV GOJSC Skopje, yesterday, 09th of March 2021 at our premises, had a meeting with Mr. Ylber Sela, Director of LIA.

In this meeting Mr. Hamidi informed about the difficulties and the need of M-NAV in terms of the use of albanian language at its full extend at the official level in accordance with the Law on the Use of Languages and the possibility to use the Albanian language in practice which includes translation of internal documents necessary for the normal and efficient functioning of our company. The difficulties are related to the current financial situation as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic due to which we are not able to employ professional translator/interpreter even though this employment has been planned in our Financial Plan for 2021. At the first given opportunity, M-NAV will proceed towards the solution to this problem.

Mr. Sela stated that the LIA will provide all necessary assistance to M-NAV for the translation/interpretation of forms, administrative acts, as well as other official documents of our company.

It is true, war begets sacrifices and torment but in the issue at hand it brought hope! During the Second World War many of the men were responding to a call of arms to fight for their countries, and this left open many jobs to be done by the women left at home. Among these jobs, starting from 1941 a handful of women started taking on the toughest of challenges, flight control was only a small part! Who was the first woman controler, we do not know for sure but several names are mentioned when a small group of women started applying themselves in this profession! You can read more on this topic on the following link: The First Women Controllers (faa.gov)

What is the story regarding the macedonian pioneers in this field was best told by one of our colleagues who has been the longest in this profession, Nadica Gavrilovska. She shares her story in an interview that has been published on the 35th page of The Controller magazine, issue of October 2019. As Nadica retells, when in 1976 she went to Belgrade, at the time a regional center for training in SFR of Yugoslavia, the commission in charge of admissions advised her that flight control is not a profession for women. She was told that she can choose a more woman friendly position as a flight attendant. From the air navigation services the highest she could hope to achieve is training for a Flight Information Officer.After finishing this training, Nadica took a position at the Skopje Airoport but she never gave up on her dream- that one day she will be in control of the skies above! A few years later, in 1979, a woman named Liljana Stojanovska was allowed to commence training for air traffic control. She finished with flying colors and thus becoming officially the first licenced controller in Macedonia, working at the Ohrid Airport. These two trailblazing women paved the road for their future colleagues: Svetlana (Ceca) Bunjevac, Marina Shutarev, Katica Trenevska, Zorica Krndija, Frosina Doneski and many more who followed in their footsteps.

Recently M-NAV GOJSC, did a selection of new students for controllers, but unfortunately from the eleven chosen, only one is a woman, our youngest and future controller Daniela Denkovska!

The true reason why so little women apply for these trainings, we shall have to look deeper in the essence of the social stereotypes and home up-bringing, but our mission remains, that every woman that wants to become an air traffic controller will not put up with the answer: ” It is not a profession for women!”

In the table above you may see the actual percentage of gender representation in all the sectors. From the beginnings of MNAV GOJSC Skopje, the Managing Board has never had a female member and from all of the five current top management positions (Executive directors and their deputies), only one, and for the first time is a woman. Until recently, the Sector for Technical Service has not had not one woman employee, but now there are already two. Slowly, but surely this man-inclusive profession is giving up on excluding the females. We are very grateful to the women who paved the way for us, who with their patience and endurance fought the social taboos and here and now We give a solemn promise that our professionalism will not betray their sacrifice.

The last year of 2020 was one of the most challenging and year full of hardship for M-NAV GOJSC due to the impact caused by the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemics. Although during the summer period we saw a minimal restoration of the situation as a result of air traffic towards the tourist destinations in Greece and Turkey, the second wave of Covid – 19 started in the last quarter, generating new restrictions to be imposed at State level in most European countries which re-imposed new preventive measures with partial closure of borders and introduction of quarantine measures at the entrance to their territory and all this caused additional hit to our revenues . In the year of 2020, M-NAV GOJSC Skopje suffered loss of over 5 million Euros which directly and to a large extent affects the current liquidity of the Company.

Eurocontrol Feedback

Looking at the 2020, traffic loss for North Macedonia was on average 58%, or some 12k flights lower (arrivals and departures only) when compared to the previous 2019 year.

If we consider overflights for the last year, we saw 57.1% drop, while there was -65.3% lower for arrivals and departures when compared to 2019.

The following table presents the situation at ACC level (Area Control Center) and for the main airport in our country.

Latest Eurocontrol Traffic Scenarios 2021

The first month of 2021 is expected to be approximately -64% down which is close to the EUROCONTROL short-term draft traffic scenario, last published in September 2020. In response to the latest COVID waves and risks associated with new variants, many States across Europe are imposing measures on travel which strongly discourages air travel unless it is for essential reasons. As a result, demand is greatly suppressed and airlines are dramatically reducing their capacity accordingly.

It is expected that the epidemiological situation will have improved in many European States by Q2 of this year and that the most vulnerable citizens across Europe will have been vaccinated (despite delays in the roll-out). In turn, this could lead to the possibility for non-essential air travel to become more accessible, which could facilitate a small improvement during Q2, followed by a larger recovery in the summer period.

Even if the epidemiological situation has improved by Q2, many States may potentially will continue to act with their national travel restrictions which will severely curtail demand and the possibility for air travel to start gradually to recover until the Summer period at the latest.

In the year of 2021 as well, as it was case of 2020, M-NAV GOJSC Skopje will face a significant air traffic drop compared to the period before the outbreak of the pandemics, thus causing direct financial implications on the Company which are anticipated to be over 55% from 2019.

The Management Board of M-NAV GOJSC Skopje headed by its President extends highest assurances that will proceed to monitor and analyze all information regarding the Covid-19 crisis and how to improve the air traffic situation. We hope that the cooperation between the countries in view of harmonized regulation of measures and restrictions on entry into the countries will continue in positive direction which could be a trigger for aviation industry recovery. The dynamics of the Covid -19 vaccination of the population worldwide plays a vital role for faster air traffic recovery and increased demand for air transport.

M-NAV GOJSC Skopje is committed to gather analysis and statistics which will assists us to be ready to handle such crisis in future.

We remain optimistic that at the beginning of the summer the situation will gradually begin to recover and people`s confidence to use the air transport will return, so we, as air navigation service providers remain committed to achievement of our mission, ensuring safe and efficient air traffic, above all.

Covid-19 crisis lasting since the very beginning of the year, made a significant impact on the aviation sector, that according to the aviation experts will cause a financial damage of approximately 110 billion Euros for all aviation stakeholders, i.e. the air navigation providers, airlines and the airports. These effects have not spared M-NAV either, thus resulting in significant drop in traffic of 92,2 % during the month of May, in comparison to the same month of the previous year (2019). The reduction in M-NAV’s income for the first 6 months is just above 4 million Euros. On European level, during the forthcoming months, taking into consideration all restrictions and limitation applied by the States health authorities, certain steps for graduate return to normal operations, were taken and the air traffic starts to increase. In April, EUROCONTROL presented two draft scenarios for graduate return to normal operations. The latest analysis depicts that the actual traffic is in line with the recommended coordinated scenario.

Source: EUROCONTROL

Compared to this scenarios M-NAV during the months of April, May and June presented lower results, where as in July has successfully provided service to 11282 overflights, which represents a drop of 62,1% in comparison to the same month previous year and this being in accordance with the coordinated scenario

M-NAV data is from in house statistics

The same rising trend continues in August also, thanks to the traffic that serves the passengers towards the summer holiday destinations in Turkey and Greece. We are joyfully welcoming every traffic increase, thus remaining completely dedicated to safe provision of service to our appreciated customers.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of North Macedonia on behalf of the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia has reached a Memorandum of Cooperation with the other Member States of the BLUE MED Functional Airspace Block. This opens a way for active participation of our country in the regional cooperation between the Member States of BLUE MED FAB, the Republic of Cyprus, Hellenic republic, Italy and the Republic of Malta.

M-NAV expresses a special pleasure for the fact that very soon its appointed representatives along with the representatives of the Ministry of Transport and Communications and of the Civil Aviation Agency will participate in the meetings of the Governing Body, as well as FAB Committees and Working Groups, thus obtaining an opportunity to exchange opinions and views in direction of improving the air navigation safety and meeting the needs of all users of the Airspace.

M-NAV, through its representative, Mr. Vladko Krstevski – Executive Director of CNS participated in the stakeholder`s Forum of Network Directors of Technology & Infrastructure Working Group (NDTECH), held last week at Eurocontrol’s Headquarters in Brussels. This Working Group has been established to provide support to the Network Manager in Cooperative Decision Making processes (CDM) on matters related to technology and infrastructure issues of the European ATM network.

The Working Group shall report to and support decision-making by the Network Management Board on matters related to technology and infrastructure of the European ATM network in execution of the tasks, as laid out in IR (EU) 123/2019 (EC1, 2019).

It shall ensure that the decisions taken by the Network Management Board are proper and that the guidance and the decisions of NMB are efficiently implemented. The close co-operation with the Networks Directors of Operations Group (NDOP) is crucial, providing relevant technology and infrastructure-related input.

Being a stakeholder in this forum, M-NAV has again proven that it continuously follows and contributes to the realization of all concepts, programs and projects, articipating in their definition and development.

M-NAV is committed to achieving a coherence of the agreed network and local activities with the Network Strategy Plan and Network Operations Plan.

Our organization actively contributed to the fulfillment of the requirements of the European ATM Master Plan, of the Single European Sky performance targets and of the requirements arising from the relevant European Union/European Commission Regulations.