Belgrade – Dubrovnik 20 years later

Jat returns to Dubrovnik
After almost 20 years, Jat Airways today resumed flights from the Serbian capital to the Pearl of the Adriatic. This morning Jat’s ATR72 departed Belgrade at 07.30 on route to Dubrovnik as flight JU720 and arrived at 08.40 without much fanfare. The service will operate twice per week. In only 3 days, Croatia Airlines will also commence 2 weekly flights between the two cities making it Croatia Airlines’ first scheduled service to Serbia. It is a long way from 20 years ago when the two cities were connected several times per day but marks the start of flights between Croatia and Serbia which, with the exception of summer flights between Belgrade and Pula in 2008, did not operate for 20 years.

The final service between Belgrade and Dubrovnik was operated by JAT Yugoslav Airlines on August 6, 1991. No regular flights have operated between the two ever since. Before the breakup of Yugoslavia the final service from Serbia to Croatia was operated between Belgrade and Pula on September 13, 1991. It is interesting to note that during the late 1980s Yugoslav Airlines’ most popular domestic service was between Belgrade and Dubrovnik, outperforming even the Belgrade – Zagreb flights.

Both Jat Airways’ and Croatia Airlines’ flights to Dubrovnik will operate until September as a seasonal summer service. Although initial bookings for the flights were low, things have recently picked up.

Comments

  1. Woohoo :)
    What was the load factor? :)

    Now, we only need ZAG connection all year round and maybe PUY and ZAD/SPU during summer months :)

    btw-does anyone know how much planes JAT has? I need an accurate info :)

    p.s. beg.aero says that there are 6 flights to Antalya today... I guess Egypt and Tunisia lost significant number of tourists this year. :(

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  2. Wait, didn't Jat operate at least one flight like last year before the Croats withdrew their operating licence?

    Does anyone know anything regarding the loads?

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  3. Anonymous09:28

    Croatia also flies to Pristina (Serbia). So, not true that this is the first destination within Serbia.

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  4. Stefan09:42

    Great news :)

    @nemjee not sure how many planes are flying but YU-AON just got out of the hanger overhauled and has started fliying
    http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/3/8/1/1936183.jpg

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  5. Stefan,

    Thanks for the info however I think the answer was to JU500's question lol

    It's good to see -AON flying around once again. Iflew on it some time ago and it was quite bad inside.
    As for that pic, the paint looks so fresh and nice.

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  6. Anonymous10:03

    Today it was:
    BEGDBV JU720/17JUN 66
    DBVBEG JU721/17JUN 22

    Following flights booking for now:

    BEGDBV JU720/19JUN 48
    DBVBEG JU721/19JUN 40
    BEGDBV JU720/24JUN 40
    DBVBEG JU721/24JUN 22
    BEGDBV JU720/26JUN 53
    DBVBEG JU721/26JUN 57

    Considering that JAT operates ATR72 on this route, this represents very good load factor.

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  7. Anonymous10:06

    Congratulations! Hopefully this is a harbinger of better regional relations in the future as well as more tourists from Serbia returning to the Adriatic coast rather than wasting their money on cheap package tours to North Africa. Nothing compares to the Adriatic.

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  8. Anonymous10:10

    Wow those are great numbers especially for DBV-BEG since its June and its obviously not Serbs returning from their holiday, rather Croats visiting Serbia.

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  9. Anonymous,

    Thanks for the loads.... do you by any chances have the loads for the BEG-SKG route? I always wondered how that route did.

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  10. Anonymous11:02

    "Croatia also flies to Pristina (Serbia). So, not true that this is the first destination within Serbia."

    Oh come on, why do you have to get political. Grow up.

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  11. Anonymous11:54

    Today's flight JU720 BEG-DBV 64 PAX out of 66 seats, no journalists and officials.

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  12. Anonymous13:46

    Great load factor. I will appreciate if you can provide us pax number of Croatia Airlines first flight on June 20.

    Tickets are very affordable, now you can find return ticket for August for only 122 € with CA, and 110 € with JAT. I am little concerned about profitability.

    Hope for BEG-SPU and BEG-PUY next summer.

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  13. Anonymous15:17

    There was some talking about zagreb - beograd route with CA this winter. Has anyone some information??

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  14. @ last Anonymous

    It's good that they lowered the airfare. Any new route cannot be profitable right away. Let's hope that with a low price they can get passengers back flying this route. Once they get the customer base, they can put the price back to where it should be to make things profitable.

    I hope we see even more new routes reopened like this one. BEG-SPU would be an interesting one. Good luck to both Jat and Croatia!

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  15. Straya17:20

    Woohoo, extremely good news :) Well, dunno how profitable they might be, but with new planes (DHC Dash) they could be, if Riga - Belgrade flights are, then why wouldn't BEG-DBV be :). Just hope (from the bottom of my Pandora's box) that Wizz Air or any other low cost airline will start flying soon to some destination in Croatia (SPU, ZAG), and create a cheap link between these cities, and destroy the overpriced bus transportation.

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  16. Anonymous21:30

    Why shouldn't EUR 110 per R/T ticket be profitable?

    What are the airport taxes and other fees ?

    Chelica2

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  17. What a great day for the EX YU Aviation today! After 20 years of waiting, JAT returns to DBV and we get a direct flight to Chicago. My blessings to both and may we have even more great news as this.

    Cheers

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  18. Anonymous22:11

    Maybe DBV should become a hub of Ex YU and this way end the ZAG/BEG rivalry. :)

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  19. I'd hope that DBV surpasses Pristina this year, and thus'll become the 3rd or 4th busiest airport in ex Yu, depending on how well LJU will do this year.
    Pristina may be looking at achieving 1,5 mil and so may Dubrovnik if it has an outstanding season.

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  20. Anonymous08:04

    FRD-ZAG-BEG CLD today.

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  21. Chelica,

    110 euros is more than profitable. Plus, it's not like all the seats in the plane are at that price...
    Plus the Atr uses about 600kg of fuel for the first hour of flight (500 for the next) which means that when you operate such a route with a turboprop your expenses are much less than with a jet.
    That is why on the Belgrade>Montenegro market, Montenegro Airlines does transport more passengers but Jat makes a bigger profit.
    I do not know how much the service charges are at Belgrade airport for an Atr but on average for an A320, per flight, it's around 1,000 Euros.

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