Vladimir Trifunović, Director At SKY PARTNER R.S.

There is currently no company better equipped than us to respond to the future volume of work at Nikola Tesla Airport, which is set to increase dramatically. Although our growth strategy is planned independently of the new concessionaire, we believe we will develop much faster alongside them.

Your company, Sky Partner, is engaged – alongside the operator of Nikola Tesla Airport and Air Serbia – in ground-based aircraft services. Can we, as flight passengers, even see the work you do?

– We take care of those initial or final segments of your journey – we ensure that airlines and passengers are safe and, more importantly, served in a timely manner on the ground, just prior to connecting the aircraft and the “finger”, the aviation bridge. We take care to make sure your luggage arrives on time for you, that it follows you if you have a connection.

We are responsible for your safety during boarding and disembarking and, generally speaking, we struggle with the same torments of coordination and counting aircraft as air traffic controllers. All those people in fluorescent vests that you see through the windows of the plane are our highly educated and responsible staff. They are personnel who love their jobs and who, whether it’s raining or snowing, work to get you through the airport building or onto your plane as soon as possible.

You are the only operator in the Balkans to have an IATA ISAGO certificate in the field of aircraft ground handling services. How important is that and why?

– This certificate represents the gold standard of service quality and testifies to the fact that we are a company that runs its operations in a defined, lasting and planned manner. The process for obtaining all certificates, and in particular the ISAGO certificate, or the process of synchronising our organisation with those particular IATA rules, is a long-term job, because their plan and programme must be passed through various sectors of our company to ensure that the level of service, training and operational implementation will always be consistent.

We predominantly hire people trained in the profession, i.e. people who have completed secondary and higher aviation education. We encourage everyone who’s interested to visit our site, www.sky-partner.rs, and send us their CV

Will the increase in passenger numbers to date, coupled with the announced increase in the number of flights, lead to an increase in your volume of work and the hiring of new personnel?

– Sky Partner currently has 85 employees and we are constantly expanding – whether that’s due to the needs of our highly successful Centralised Load Control services, which we conduct from Belgrade in real-time for airlines from Australia to South America, or whether it’s due to the expected increase in traffic at Nikola Tesla Airport.

If you have completed aviation education to secondary-school level or higher, and currently find yourself surplus to requirements, I’m sure you will be needed in a few months, because we are expanding, responding to the needs of the market, and people have always been, and will remain, the most important element of our business.

Your contract for ground handling services at Nikola Tesla Airport runs until 2020. Will the concession agreement with company Vinci Airports lead to some changes in your operations and plans?

– We cannot comment on the business plans of the future concessionaire, although we have exceptionally good cooperation with the Vinci Consortium. Our parent company has cooperated for many years with Vinci and there’s no reason to believe that will be different in Belgrade. Vinci will need support in our domain of activity that is professional, efficient and fast, and it can only be provided with that at present by Sky Partner.