Second airport for Belgrade by 2016

Batajnica Airport to welcome low cost airlines in 5 years
The authorities in Belgrade have approved plans to transform the military Batajnica airbase into a commercial airport by 2016. The airport would be used exclusively for low cost airlines, offering lower fees to airlines but at the same time only basic facilities for passengers. The idea to transform Batajnica Airport for commercial use has been on the table for several years but this latest move will now see a terminal building built and runways overhauled in 5 years. Between 2013 and 2016 the airport would be transferred from the ownership of the military to the city.

Batajnica was severely damaged during the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia. However, since then a lot of work has been done to restore the airport. A new control tower has been built (pictured above) and new access roads have also been constructed. Batajnica Airport is located on the outskirts of Belgrade in the Batajnica suburb. It is some 25 kilometres from the city centre. It is well connected with the rest of the country being located on the Belgrade – Novi Sad highway, having a direct rail link to the city and being the starting point of the Belgrade bypass currently under construction.

Batajnica has a total of 3 runways but only 1 is in use since the other 2 have not been reconstructed since the bombing. Belgrade is currently served by only 4 low cost airlines, 1 of which has its own hub at Nikola Tesla Airport.

Do you think Belgrade needs another airport? Send a comment with your thoughts.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:03

    Why on earth would Belgrade need the second airport?
    [SK]

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  2. ANONYMOUS09:34

    What is the source for this 'story'?

    Stupidity beyond belief to put a second airport in Belgrade.

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  3. Anonymous09:57

    Money waste!

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  4. Of course Belgrade needs 2 airports. It needs at least 3. It's the centre of the earth!

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  5. @ ANONYMOUS

    Article originally published by Tanjug news agency, adapted from:

    http://www.gdestinacija.com/destinacije/Evropa/srbija/beograd/novosti/1497/Aerodrom+u+Batajnici+rezervisan+za+loukost+letove.html

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  6. Zrak10:47

    The most important question is if this airport will be linked by high-speed trains to Berane and Trebinje Airports.

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  7. Anonymous10:56

    nope belgrade airport only need 1 so no point of getting second airport for what???

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  8. Anonymous11:10

    Sure we need one for intercontinental flights!

    Stupidity. Belgrade Airport is empty out of peak hours.

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  9. Anonymous11:25

    There is a need even for third one, since Serbs are emigrating out of Serbia in big numbers. See increase in BEG pax last month.

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  10. Anonymous11:30

    actually why not? (and im no Serb)

    Ryanair is gonna love this idea

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  11. Anonymous12:01

    I honestly don’t understand why people are bitching a moaning about this. It’s going to happen in 5 FIVE years. An airline like easyjet or ryanair would use such an airport for sure. It’s not like they are building the airport because there is over capacity at BEG, they are building it so the no frills low class airlines such as ryan or easy could operate.

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  12. Anonymous12:06

    there will be a need for an LCC airport in 5 years time, especially since BEG will reach it's capacity in 2 to 3 years time

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  13. ANONYMOUS12:12

    ^
    This is laughable stupidy. Which political party controls Tanjug? Sounds like more pre-election bullsh!t.

    The only justification for a second airport (anywhere) is if the cost of adding extra capacity (be it runway capacity or terminal capacity) at the 1st airport is more expensive than it would be at the 2nd. There are huge inefficiences associated with a second airport, and the FACT is that Belgrade Nikola Tesla is not even 15 years away from hitting any sort of constraints with the existing facilities. With 1 runway and the existing 1 runway, it could easily handle upwards of 12-15m passengers, and the terminal is easily, and cheaply, expandable.

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  14. Ufft From Melb13:15

    As a the capital city and a Major airport the taxes are still to high for alot of the low cost airlines to fly there and stil offer flights at low costs they would normally so this is awsome for low cost airlines which is good for majority of people who cant or choose not to pay the full fare for services they dont need nor recognise as value but on the other hand this is a invitation to bury Jat any serious company that would want to purchase Jat would see this as a massive threat and would not even think again to purchase the company and on the same page alot of other airline frequency may be cut due to these low cost carriers. Its really up to them wether they want to turn BG into a Low cost Capital or continue with there current growth and offer a good variety.

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  15. Anonymous16:47

    Nice control tower

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  16. Anonymous17:03

    It is related with the JAT sale. It seems that Serbian Governmet will give the guaranty to TK that there will not be LCC service in BEG.

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  17. Would you queens calm down... there will not be a new lowcost airport in the city in the next twenty years. The army doesn't want to hear about it. This is just bad journalism.

    Seriously, some of you on here need to get a life and tune down the bashing of Serbia.

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  18. Anonymous18:06

    yes, belgrade needs second airport. why not? it is big european city. ok, now the one we have is quite enough, but in 5 years, we will need the second one. in 5 years i expect 7-8 mill pax at beg airport, so lowcosters will probably move to batajnica one. so, please stop being negative about anything serbians try to do/make. support for serbia from greece!!!

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  19. Anonymous18:20

    Sramota, opet sve u i oko Beograda.
    Srbijo propadamo sigurno !!!

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  20. Последњи аноним,

    Шта причаш глупости, а када су прошле недеље најављивали изградњу аеродрома у Краљеву и Нишу, где си онда био да кукаш?
    Уосталом, Мађарска има један аеродром па је њима боље него што је нама.

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  21. Geronimo19:44

    If Belgrade already has two airports why not use them both.The Vs would be happy to get a fresh and restored Batajnica and Lowcost comp of course.
    Its better to build now when Serbia will get more fundings for infrastructure,its cheaper to build now then to wait for some years more.
    But in the northern part of Serbia an airport is needed 1/3 of the Beg passengers are from the north and between Subotica and Novi sad would be great to have an airport too.

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  22. PRAGuc19:49

    Long live Ferihegy airport :) Long live hungarian centralization :)

    @Nemjee, don't worry not all queens are bitchy haha..

    But of course you know that all of problems in Serbia are Belgrade's fault (not the republic, that logically is in Belgrade) but a problem of Belgraders, since people basically generalize these 2 things.

    They are going to adapt this new law nowadays that keeps 80% of income taxes in the municipalities, but I do believe that even then we will be "the hated ones" in the south, cuz they will invent a new problem thats Belgrade's fault.... Just wait and see.

    I just love the Soviet 101Km rule. We should apply it.

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  23. Anonymous21:46

    @Nemjee

    Ne seri i ne pricaj gluposti , imam pravo da kazem svoje misljenje a to je da se u ovoj siromasnoj zemlji Srbiji sve sto isplanira izgradi u i oko Beograda.

    To je sramota za drzavu jer u Beogradu zivi 2 miliona a van njega 3-4 puta vise ljudi.

    Sta ste vi beogradjani, neka arijevska rasa???
    Zato nam cela zemlja propada, i zato je Beograd sve zaguseniji jer se ne vodi racuna o ravnomernom razvoju zemlji, i svi regioni ce se jednog dana odvojiti, makar finansijski ako nista drugo.

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  24. PRAGuc22:08

    Quote:"Zato nam cela zemlja propada, i zato je Beograd sve zaguseniji jer se ne vodi racuna o ravnomernom razvoju zemlji, i svi regioni ce se jednog dana odvojiti, makar finansijski ako nista drugo."


    Would be LOVELY.


    Btw this forum is in english not serbian/croatian/bosnian and so on... Respect these rules please

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  25. PRAGuc,

    I completely agree with you. It's getting quite boring to listen to the same old story how it's our fault that Belgrade is developped and the rest of Serbia isn't. Maybe if they got up and actually did something for a change then we would see some progress. Then again, how can we expect anything creative to come from let's say 'Juzna pruga' when they can't even learn all the declinations of the Serbian language, their mother tongue! ;)

    I do love the Hungarians, they are so cool and don't give a damn about anyone or anything. Just look at the parties in their parliament! :D

    Anonim,

    Твој коментар је тако прост и једноставно глуп да нећу губити моје време да ти одговорим.

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  26. Baš me zanima šta će biti sa Terminalom 1 na LYBE. Mislim ako otvaraju Batajnicu kao Low Cost, onda pretpostavka je da će aktivirati Terminal 1 za nešto, ili...?

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  27. Anonymous00:54

    if they open Batajnica then some travelers who are using BEG probably will use this airport, and that means less pass. for BEG and also less money. and from other side if the number of pass. at batajnica wouldnt be enough for reliable working than instead of makeing profit with one airport, they will have a big money losse with airports.

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  28. Anonymous01:29

    It's better to invest in a new terminal at the Nikola Tesla Airport and to get a second runway, connect the Airport with underground train.

    Greetings from Basel

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  29. George,

    They will start renovating Termina 1 soon as its condition is quite horrible.
    If Nikola Tesla managment is smart enough they would fix the departure area of terminal 1 and have the gates accessible from the terminal rather than have passengers walk to terminal 2 to board flights.
    Like taht they would in a way create a lowcost terminal and reduce the necessity of a new airport. In such a way they could keep their passengers and money.

    Basel anonymous,

    The reconstruction of the Belgrade terminal is currently under way. The next step is to remove the rooms before boarding, and with them the security check which would mean that from soon we would have to pass only through one security area when flying.
    Like that they will make the terminal a bit more roomier as it tends to get quite crowded during peak hours.

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  30. Anonymous09:13

    So funny all these stories.

    One jet bridge (C6) at BEG collapsed two months ago. The airport authorities haven't been able to fix it, and all other C jet bridges have been out of operation ever since.

    If they can't fix this in two months (and going), I can't even imagine them doing any other work/reconstruction at the airport.

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  31. Anonymous09:19

    ^ It has been fixed for some time already but they have to wait for the Spanish company that made the air bridges conduct an internal investigation before they can use them again.

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  32. Anonymous12:33

    This actually used to be aviation enthusiast blog, which has now come down to usual Balkan bickering. Nice one there.

    My two cents on BJY - building a new airport from scratch 15km from an airport which is still under its capacity is just nuts. However, it is not a new airport, and it seems that all they need is a passanger terminal, everything else is already in place. Putting up a building with LCC-type conditions is not really an expensive and painstaking effort.

    However, I would hate to see a chance to make BEG truly a major airport missed, and by dividing the traffic between the two, that is exactly what is going to happen. BEG should see its T1 completely refurbished or even a fusion with T2, and C gates could go all the way to the access road, say to gate C15. Of course, there is an issue of second runway and ground transportation.

    That would make Surcin possibly a minor international hub in the future, and LCCs there would not hurt. Alternative would be a high speed train link between BJY and BEG, but now, that would be a waste of money if BEG is still under capacity.

    And regarding the financing, BEG might as well buy the rights from VS to use BJY, they have more that enough profits as it is.

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  33. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  34. epasada00719:58

    my 2 cents - It would be a good idea to open a LCC airport in Kovin.
    Why there > good position, it's nearbuy the town of Smederevo (US Steel) and only some 45 km (28 mi) east of central Belgrade, rode from Pancevo is straight and airport could be reach in less than 30 min from Pancevo Brigde (Pancevac)

    Runaway are in very good condition, length is more then 2000m, and in my opinion, there in no need for large additional repairments.

    The airport has been a military airport for training until recently
    mostly on Utva 75 and some types of helicopters.
    In 1998 Jat DC-9-32 plane successfully make forced landing on Kovin Airport.

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  35. "in 5 years i expect 7-8 mill pax at beg airport"

    I have a bridge to sell you.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous23:33

      Well now that constatation doesn't seem so stupid :)

      Delete
  36. @doot

    Is it a working airbridge in Belgrade? I'd be interested.

    ReplyDelete

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