Soon in Priština 
Air Berlin has announced plans for its newest European base – Priština. Flights from the city will kick off at the beginning of the 2009/2010 winter season, on October 25. The first flights to be launched are those to the Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva. Both of these services will be operated by the Air Berlin subsidiary Belair (not to be mistaken with the Albanian low cost carrier Belle Air). The service to Zurich will operate 6 times per week while flights to Geneva will operate once per week. All flights from Priština to Switzerland will be operated by the A320-200. Air Berlin will connect Priština with 4 German cities starting from November. These are Dusseldorf, Munich, Hanover and Frankfurt. Most services will operate only once per week and will be serviced by the airline’s Boeing B737-700 fleet. All flight details can be found on the right hand side in the new route launches section.
The new flights planned by Air Berlin will put the cherry on the cake for Priština Airport management which is reporting positive growth this year, despite the global financial crisis and the political uncertainty surrounding the region. Air Berlin is the second largest airline in Germany and one of the rear airlines in the country not part of the Lufthansa monopoly. It is expected that Air Berlin will base one of its aircraft in Priština. Although Air Berlin is a low cost airline tickets will not be cheap. Most round trip tickets will set passengers back approximately 250 Euros. Tickets can now be booked via the airline’s website. Kosovo has tried to create its own airline numerous times however all attempts have failed so far and resulted in a financial collapse.
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ReplyDelete@Bosnian
ReplyDeletei will e-mail you tomorrow!
trebam na ispit
rear does not equal rare!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBack on topic..
ReplyDeleteAir Berlin aren't really 'Low cost' - their fares are high, and a lot of that is down to a completely confused business strategy... they really don't know what they want to be - They tried Low Cost, but found their costs were so much higher than true low cost airlines that they got destroyed on head to head routes. Then they started ordering long haul aircraft, tried hubbing through various airports in Germany, and acquired LTU, Belair (a Swiss charter airline), and god knows what else - Not clever.
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteInteresting analysis. How do you think they will do from Priština and will it last?
dobrodosao u Pristini Er Berlin :) miresivini n'Prishtina!
ReplyDelete@EX-YU:
ReplyDeleteAir berlin operating from Pristina certainly has a good chance of 'success' simply due to the lack of competition, and a large element of traffic from Pristina which is related to non-governmental organisations, UN, peacekeepers, EU people, etc - these travellers are fairly price insensitive obviously.
While their overall strategy may be a bit confused and unclear, fundamentally they're a cost consciencious airline unlike the basket-case flag carriers in the region (Adria, Croatia, Jat, etc).