The best offer for the purchase of the last aircraft from the former national airline, Montenegro Airlines (MA), was made by Bojan Dragaš.
“This decision has not yet become final. Once the decision is final, the bankruptcy trustee will proceed with the sale,” the Commercial Court stated.
According to information from Vijesti, Dragaš is a businessman of Montenegrin descent based in the United States. He submitted his offer through an authorized representative and plans to dismantle the plane and transport it to another location where he intends to turn it into a restaurant.
On March 7, the bankruptcy trustee decided to select Dragaš as the highest bidder for a Fokker 100 aircraft, offering 57,000 EUR. This was the highest bid, while the starting price for the plane was 23,900 EUR. The other two bidders made lower offers. Last year, the same aircraft was put up for sale at 33,000 EUR, but there were no buyers at that time.
The plane has been without engines and key instruments for some time and has been located on a secondary runway at Podgorica airport for over five years.
A source told Vijesti that the plane can be dismantled into parts and reassembled at another location. There is a global trend of repurposing retired and damaged planes, which can no longer be flown, into restaurants, houses, exhibition spaces, shops, and other types of buildings.
The bankruptcy administration has generated 2.2 million EUR in revenue from selling the former airline’s assets, including the most recent sale announcement from December last year, as the sale from the February 2025 listing has not yet been confirmed by the bankruptcy judge.
So far, creditors have not received any payments from the bankruptcy estate.
Earlier, the bankruptcy administration recognized claims totaling 33.8 million EUR from the former airline, out of a total of 169.7 million EUR in claims. Several lawsuits are ongoing before the Commercial Court regarding disputed claims.
Montenegro Airlines entered bankruptcy in April 2021 due to a 12 million EUR tax debt. The total liabilities amounted to around 170 million EUR. The company owed employees seven months of net salaries and pension contributions for three years, which they are seeking to recover from the bankruptcy estate.
