Qatar Airways mulls Skopje link in 2016

Qatar Airways confirms Skopje interest

The Senior Vice President for Aero Political, Industry, Regulatory Affairs & Alliances at Qatar Airways, Ali Alrais, says his airline hopes to establish flights from its hub in Doha to Skopje Alexander the Great Airport next year. Speaking in the capital last week following talks with the Macedonian President, Mr Alrais said the new service would boost relations between the two countries, develop trade links and fuel business travel. "As a Qatar Airways official, I see potential investment opportunities in Macedonia, primarily as a country that can develop tourism. I hope that next year we will introduce direct flights to Skopje, which will represent an excellent opportunity to building bridges between our two countries", Mr Alrais said.

The Qatari national carrier first expressed interest to launch services to Skopje back in 2013. In March that year, a high ranking delegation from Qatar Airways visited the Macedonian capital where they said flights between Doha and Skopje would primarily attract transit passengers from Australia and the Far East. Currently, Flydubai links Macedonia with the Middle East as the airline is maintaining two weekly flights from/to Dubai this winter season. Furthermore, Turkish Airlines caters for a large number of Macedonian travellers transiting through Istanbul further eastwards. "Currently you need ten hours to reach Skopje from Doha. A direct flight will take only four hours", Mr Alrais said.

In 2010 Macedonia and Qatar signed a bilateral air transport agreement and committed to an open skies policy. As a result, Qatar Airways is able to operate an unlimited number of passenger and cargo flights to Skopje using any type of aircraft. Furthermore, the open skies policy grants the Qatari carrier third, fourth and fifth freedom passenger rights on intermediate routes and beyond. This would, for example, allow Qatar Airways to operate flights between Macedonia and another, third, country. Last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed that Qatar Airways is planning to launch flights to Sarajevo in 2016, with final preparations underway before the carrier officially announces the new service. The Qatari carrier currently operates daily flights to both Zagreb and Belgrade within the former Yugoslavia.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:35

    I hope for Sarajevo-Skopje-Doha with of course fifth freedom between SJJ and SKP. Would make perfect sense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That link would be make really perfect sense.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:40

      +1

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:38

    Could they actually launch Doha-Skopje-Sarajevo flights? They would have fifth freedom rights. Skopje is too much south for it to operate via another city so this would make sense. But would there be enough passengers?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:40

      Qatar Airways doesn't mind too much whether the route is profitable in the first few years of operations.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:39

      Not much evidence they mind even after the first few years.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:39

    They are really chasing after flydubai with Sarajevo & Skopje.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:44

      True if they start SJJ and SKP they would have the same destinations as Fly Dubai in ex-Yu.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous09:39

    This is great news and I really hope it happens this time

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:43

      Unlike the Sarajevo flights it's good to actually here a Qatar executive speaking about this one so I think there is much more of a possibility for the Skopje flights to actually start.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous10:15

    OT: Split in October 135 163 passengers, up 16,5% from last year.
    Now dead season oficially starts...until April..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:37

      Bravo Split!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:51

      Dubrovnik in oct. 2015 - 148615 Pax, +9%.

      Delete
    3. Purger11:27

      Bravo za Dubrovnik i Split. Vrlo fascinantan rast. Još da iznađu načina da povečaju broj putnika tijekom zime, jer tolika razlika u broju putnika i sezonalnost stvara vrlo velike troškove.

      Isto tako bravo za rast koji su zabilježile ostale hrvatske zračne luke. Tu je samo Zadar omanuo ove godine.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous13:30

      Zadar in Oct. 2015 - 51400 Pax, +15,8%

      Delete
    5. Anonymous20:23

      Da, ali je top sezona bila izuzetno loša.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous10:38

    This is great news. I also hope they offer great prices to places like China and Japan :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous10:53

    Well done Skopje. CSA, Ryanair and Qatar would be nice additions for 2016.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous11:04

    OT I just noticed that Aegean plans on sending its A320 to LJU! I thought it would have been a Q400.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous11:10

    OT: Sarajevo in October +10%, Mostar in October -13%...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous11:23

    Go Skopje!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous11:38

    I´m happy to hear such postive news about Skopje!

    It looks like the flights to Sarajevo will operate via Skopje.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous12:32

    OT:

    airBaltic / Air Serbia Expands Codeshare Partnership from Nov 2015

    Posted at 0330GMT 03NOV15

    airBaltic and Air Serbia starting this week will expand codeshare partnership, covering additional routes beyond Belgrade and Riga, effective 05NOV15. New Codeshare routes include:

    airBaltic operated by Air Serbia
    Belgrade – Amsterdam
    Belgrade – Brussels
    Belgrade – Copenhagen
    Belgrade – Vienna

    Air Serbia operated by airBaltic
    Riga – Amsterdam
    Riga – Berlin Tegel
    Riga – Copenhagen
    Riga – Stockholm
    Riga – Vienna

    Source: http://airlineroute.net/2015/11/03/btju-codeshare-nov15/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:45

      Steta sto nije u planu spajanje ta dva grada .
      INN-NS

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:40

      Sada treba neko da ti objasnjava da nema potraznje i da sa codesherom mozes da letis preko tri aerodroma do rige bez da brines o konekciji.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:03

      Ja ne znam kome stvari ovde trebaju da se objasnjavaju za vas nema ni IKA potencijal ;).
      INN-NS

      Delete
    4. Ja leteo dva puta BEG-RIX airBalticom, divna vremena kad si mogao za Uzbekistan da letis za 340evra. Ali cinjenica je da su avioni uvek bili puni ali je yield bio veoma los.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous13:51

    Probably they will go to one of the followin options.

    Option 1
    Doha-Sofia-Skopje-Sofia-Doha (because of the lack of traffic rights)
    Doha-Belgrade-Sarajevo-Belgrade-Doha (non-stop for BEG)

    Option 2
    Doha-Skopje-Sarajevo-Skopje-Doha
    The rest ramains the same

    Option 3
    Doha-Skopje-Belgrade-Doha
    Doha-Sofia-Zagreb-Sofia-Doha
    Sarajevo - to be postponed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:16

      Why would they link ZAG to SOF? ZAG already has non stop flights.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous15:22

      ZAG is actually doing quite well, we might see increase soon. Linking it to anything is not the option.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous16:26

      The last one with zag sof is only to troll :D

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:13

      Because, probably they will separate BEG from SOF due to the lack of traffic rights between them. SOF don't have the capacity to have a separate non-stop line and they will probably link it to another city in ex Yu. So, the options is SOF to be packed with SKP, SJJ or ZAG where they will have traffic rights.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous14:14

    BEG October figures are out:

    Pax: 401.542 (-1% yoy)
    Ops: 4.870 (-1% yoy)
    Cargo: 1.192.905 kgs (+50% yoy)

    Hopefully we stay at last year pax numbers by the end of the year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:43

      5 zadnjih dana oktobra je uticalo na ovaj pad. Novembar i decembar ce biti iznad 10 posto pada

      Delete
    2. Anonymous14:45

      All other ex-yu airports had large increases.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous14:48

      Yeah and while Zagreb was seeing declines some months last year BEG was recording 30% growth.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous14:51

      Phenomenal growth of cargo! Well done Belgrade!

      Even with a very small decline, handling over 400,000 pax in October is an enviable number! Good work!

      Delete
    5. Anonymous14:53

      Cargo seems to be the largest increase this year.

      Delete
    6. Aэrologic15:50

      Many people tend to forget that cargo is as important in making money as the transport of pax. Moreover, cargo can render viable some routes that simply couldn't survive purely on passenger loads. Cargo has almost doubled in BEG in two years.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous15:04

    OT: Sa kakvom pticom danas dolazi Saudijski princ na BEG?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous15:31

      Конкорд

      Delete
    2. Anonymous17:32

      @3:31 Stvarno? Pa to je fenomenalno.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous19:35

      Зависи од количине гудре коју вози. Јуче у Бејруту ухапсише једног у приватном авиону за неку сићу - само 2 тоне. Верујем да је овај пут мало озбиљнија количина.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous21:45

      @7:35 Sigurno, čim ostaje tri dana.

      Delete
  16. Anonymous15:42

    Easyjet launched Prishtina Berlin service three weekly starting from 27 March 2016 :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:15

      Well done, Kosovo!

      Delete
  17. Anonymous16:25

    Priča se da će BEG u 2016 imati automated baggage handling. Ljudi da li je to moguće?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous16:28

      Pricaju se jos mnoge stvari ali dali ce se desiti u roku ne znamo , ja se nadam samo.
      INN-NS

      Delete
    2. Anonymous16:29

      Где се то прича?

      Delete
    3. Yes, there will be more on this tomorrow.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous18:28

      Бре сад си комшији дао форе да унапред припреми докторску дисертацију на ту тему, сутра ће ставити најдужи коментар у историји!

      Delete
    5. Anonymous01:40

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous17:12

    OT
    Ubuduce ce ovaj prizor biti jako cest na svim EX YU Aerodromima
    http://imgur.com/wi9APjU

    OS Embraer 195
    INN-NS

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:11

      ugly as hell.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous19:50

      The new OS livery is indeed terrible. But on the Embrear it looks much better than on Airbus, in my opinion.

      Delete
    3. I don't like the myAustrian brand. Kind of reminds me of MySpace. I wish they would remove it.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous00:01

      Uzivo ne izgleda toliko lose .
      Od kad je predstavljen u Maju skoro ni jednom zaposlenom ili nekome sto prati vazduhoplovstvo se ne svidja novi brand steta je sto su izbacili plavu boju sad izgledaju kao LCC.
      INN-NS

      Delete
  19. Anonymous23:33

    OT: eto Kucko iz CA prica da izvozd znanje!!!
    http://balkans.aljazeera.net/vijesti/croatia-airlines-zaraduje-odrzavajuci-avione

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zanima me dali jučerašnji poslovni rezultati uključuju prihod iz ovig izvora. Ako je to taki onda znaci da njihov osnovni biznis i dalje bilježi povelike operativne gubitke i pored restruktuiranja. Tj. Znamo da i ovako i onako operativno su u minusu. Jedini razlog pozitivnog poslovanja je prodaja imovine.

      Delete
    2. Purger23:54

      Pratim apsolutno svaki Dinamov let u inozemstvo. Ima ih 10-tak svake godine. Već godinama nisu letjeli sa Croatiom. Kao ni Cibona, Cedevita, Medveščak, Badel, tu i tamo Hrvatska nogometna reprezentacija odleti njima, ali i oni najčešče koriste druge prijevoznike. Kako je moguće da je svima njima jeftinije dovesti nekog prijevoznika i pritom platiti ferry, nego Croatiji čiji avioni nezaposleno čuče na Plesu, i nemaju trošak ferrya.

      Svi navedeni su u prošlim godinama koristili Trade air, Adriju, Carpatair (vrlo često), slovačke charteraše, ruske charteraše (posebno Medveščak koji igra u khl ligi)...

      Delete
    3. Jucer je S5-AAR (Adria Airways) vozio Dinamo u Atene. Sad kako recimo Dinamo ne iznajmi charter od Croatia Airlines, nego im je ocito isplativije uzeti Adriju, koja mora imati ferry flight LJU-ZAG.
      Ne mogu si zamisliti, da bi koji Slovenski sportski klub ili reprezentacija letjela sa CA i ne sa Adrijom, a ocito kod nas ta Croatia nema interes za charter letovima.... Kucko majstor izvozi znanje :!:D

      Delete
  20. Anonymous00:59

    Dali moze nekoj da mi pomogne okolu bagaz? Odnosno letav za Doha od Skopje i turkish airlines ne sakaa da chekiraat bagazot direktno do Doha iako imav samo 3 saata vo IST sto e mnogu malku ako cekas bagaz da zemes i da odis da se cekiras povtorno. Zosto e toa taka?

    ReplyDelete

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