About

General counsel and company secretary for Air Serbia, Danijela Popadic has led the Serbian flag carrier’s in-house legal team on a number of novel and complex deals. Most recently he played a key role in the landmark finance transaction that enabled Etihad Partners, Airberlin, Air Seychelles, Alitalia and Jet Airways to raise €1.2bn through a five-year corporate bond, a move which was recognised as the innovative deal of the year by Airfinance Journal. Discussing this achievement Popadic says: ‘The concept of the transaction was changed a few times as it was necessary to develop a synchronised model aligned with the regulatory requirements in five different countries – Germany, Seychelles, Italy, India and Serbia – which made this transaction incredibly unique and ground-breaking’. Amongst her most celebrated achievements, Popadic achieved the first ever green-light granted by the European Commission, in a case pertaining to the Commission’s investigation into Etihad’s investments in Air Serbia to identify whether its foreign ownership of European carriers complies with the EU airline licensing rules. Supporting the Serbian airline, Popadic has also been responsible for managing and aligning local and foreign counsels regarding Air Serbia’s operations in Croatia, which is closely related to the ongoing dispute concerning the interpretation of the European Community law. Popadic has also been behind the long-anticipated launch of long haul services to New York, a plan that was classed as the most important project for the company in 2016. Popadic adds: ‘This service was re-introduced to the marketplace after more than twenty years. In addition to overseeing various activities related to the launch, I led the in-house team in negotiations and closing of the long term lease of the A330 aircraft used for the purposes of the New York long haul launch’.