 |
| Air Arabia to launch Sharjah - Sarajevo flights |
Low cost airline Air Arabia plans to launch flights from its hub in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to Sarajevo this year. It will mark the carrier's third attempt at entering the former Yugoslav market and its second in Bosnia and Herzegovina in just five years. According to the "Aviatica" portal, services to Sarajevo are expected to be inaugurated at the start of the 2016 summer season, in late March. The flights will operate three times per week. Sarajevo Airport's spokeswoman, Belma Čureković, told the portal, "Talks between Air Arabia and Sarajevo Airport have been finalised. We will have exact details after an agreement is signed". Air Arabia will become the second airline from the United Arab Emirates to run flights to Sarajevo, with Flydubai to maintain daily services to the Bosnian capital next summer season.
Air Arabia has operated flights to the former Yugoslavia on two previous occasions. Both attempts had little to no success. In 2011, the budget airline introduced two weekly services from Dubai to Tuzla, which were cancelled a month later due to extremely poor loads. At the time, the airport's management noted that one flight operated with a single passenger on board. A year later, the airline introduced two weekly flights between Sharjah and Pristina. The service was also cancelled within a month. However, Flydubai's success in Sarajevo could indicate better fortunes for Air Arabia. Whether there will be enough room for two players on the market remains to be seen. Sharjah is just 38 kilometres from downtown Dubai. Air Arabia carried 6.8 million passengers in 2014 and maintains services to 115 destinations, with offshoots in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Nepal. It operates a fleet 44 Airbus A320 aircraft, which have the capacity to seat 168 passengers.
Carriers from the Gulf region will ramp up their operations to the former Yugoslavia this year. Besides Flydubai's planned daily service to Sarajevo this summer, the Federation government of Bosnia and Herzegovina has announced that Qatar Airways intends on launching services from Doha this year. Elsewhere, the Qatari carrier will operate ten weekly flights to Zagreb this summer and will run nonstop services to Belgrade, ending its Sofia stopover. Furthermore, Flydubai plans to launch two weekly flights to Podgorica this year, while Emirates has held talks with both Belgrade and Zagreb airports over potential services from Dubai. With exception to Ljubljana and Pristina, all other capital cities in the former Yugoslavia are expected to have direct air links to the Gulf region by the end of the year.
Did not see that one coming. Can 9 weekly flights between Sarajevo and the UAE really be sustainable.
ReplyDeletewow well done Sarajevo!
ReplyDeleteThey will last a month again
ReplyDeleteShould be a good year for SJJ.
ReplyDeleteBad new for Fly Dubai but I don'y think they will be too impacted. Transiting trough Dubai offers you much more opportunities than Sharjah. Many people haven't even heard of the place.
ReplyDeleteSHJ is terrible to say at best. But it is close to DXB, however in traffic it can be a horrible drive. Still, it isn't a zoo like AUH is.
DeleteGreat so we will have Sharjah but still no London, Amsterdam, Paris...
ReplyDelete+1 no flights to Italy either
DeleteNice
ReplyDeleteWill MEA fly Beirut-Sarajevo this summer. Or will Croatia Airlines be flying again between Mostar and Beirut?
ReplyDeleteCroatia will fly again OMO- BEY from May
DeleteExcellent news. So we have CSA and Air Arabia confirmed for this year. Let's hope Qatar Airways announces flights soon and I agree some more services to western Europe would be welcome.
ReplyDeleteAre they a real lowcost airline or one of thos hybrids?
ReplyDeletereal
DeleteGood luck to them but I don't think there is room for two players here and I think Fly Dubai is in a much better position.
ReplyDeleteOT
ReplyDeleteSo on Lot's first flight from WAW to BEG there were 56 passengers, return (as said by Nemjee) 35 and then yesterday on the BEG-WAW sector there were 69!
This is good!
(the other loads were reported by Aviatica!)
Where the hell these NEWS regarding Emirates are coming? Are you serious about them flyng to BEG and ZAG? EK aren't even considering to fly to OTP which will have this year over 9 mln PAX.
ReplyDeleteEK are considering OTP and have been considering BEG for many years now. Actually EK offers its chauffeur drive service from BEG for premium pax with EK tickets for the past couple of years now. OTP was loaded into the internal EK bidding system to start from September 2014 but was removed. It was to start daily with the A332.
DeleteWAW and BUD seem to be doing good, both on the B77W whilst PRG will get the A380. VCE takes on many pax from Slovenia and Croatia.
New destinations will likely be on the B777 since the A345 is randomly used and not in scheduled service, A343 will be withdrawn completely this year as with most A330 ac.
@4:37
DeleteDude it's not about the number of passengers which some airport handles, not at all. Also, OTP and BEG are after a different kind of markets. There are many Serbs and Croats in Australia (that you can't say about Romanians), and many Asians are coming to Zagreb (especially from South Korea and China) and considering the growing market between China and Serbia due to their joint projects, there is some demand from BEG and ZAG to Asia/Australia which could be covered by EK. Of course, Etihad would probably do anything to stop them from coming to BEG, but that's already another story.
EK is airline which can fly wherever it wants, no matter is it profitable or not, they make money anyway. They can afford dumping and it brings them passengers.
And I am pretty sure EK will begin flights to BEG, ZAG and OTP. Probably not this year, but somewhere until 2018 they will.
Prva Destinacija u EX YU je sigurno BEG zbog dobrih odnosa UAE i SRB.
DeleteINN-NS
S obzirom na feed koji FZ daje EK te da EK nema narrow body, možda je izglednije da FZ evtl poveća frekvencije nego da EK investira svoj kapacitet na BEG/ZAG? Budući da let 2 ili3X tjedno s obzirom na konkurenciju nema smisla a daily wide body je ipak skup + teško da ga se puni izuzev ljeti? Možda bih prije očekivao OTP te povećanje EK frekvencija na BUD ili WAW koji su veća tržišta također bez FZ?
DeleteFZ sluzi za opipavanje trzista EK , A kako se moze videti ide im dobro i u ZAG i u BEG tako da se moze ocekivati direktan let za BEG .
DeleteA kao sto mozemo videti FZ leti za BTS i ako EK ima 14 pw letova za VIE tako ce mozda biti i u EX YU da ce BEG dobiti letove.
INN-NS
Emirates već godinama ima poslovnicu u Zagrebu. Kompanije ne otvaraju poslovnice ako nemaju ozbiljnih planova za destinaciju. Poslovnica je u Westinu*****
Deleteto anonymous at 3.51PM
ReplyDeleteThere is some guy trying to change the topic always when ASL or Belgrade airport are not in focus. He is turning every conversation back on ASL or Belgrade. It is something very rude. With all respect to all,
stay once at the topic bro.
Congratulations Sarajevo
The thing is that the SJJ topic was not generating enough discussion so he switched to something that usually does. It's not a bad thing.
DeleteCongrats SJJ! Hoping to see 1 million pax in 2017! Do Bosnians need a visa for UAE?
ReplyDeleteYes they need
DeleteHope so...
DeleteRegarding the visas, yes they need.
Most importantly, Emirati, Omani, Qatari and Bahreini citizens do not require visas for BiH. Bosnia and Serbia are becoming popular destinations for Gulf citizens.
DeleteThe only two ex-yu nationals who travel visa-free to the UAE are croatian and slovenian
DeleteZAG puni putnike za UAE iz Hrvatske i iz Slovenije. Hrvati i Slovenci imaju bolji standard od Srba i vise putuju turisticki za UAE. Takodje im ne trebaju vize koje gradjanima Srbije trebaju. Daleko veci broj turista sa Dalekog Istoka i turista i iseljenika iz Australije dolazi u Zagreb i Ljubljanu odnosno Hrvatsku i Sloveniju nego u Beograd i Srbiju. ASL i Etihad vec lete svakodnevno za UAE iz BEG, a iz ZAG ne lete. Emirates su vec pre ovog zadnjeg kruga razgovora pregovarali sa ZAG i ja sam o tome vec pisao i naravno bio ispljuvan. Ako se sve ovo sagleda, vece su sanse Zagreba nego Beograda da "dobije" EK, naravno ako se sluzimo mozgom i cinjenicama umesto parolama i strastima. A naravno da bi i bilo drago da EK dodje i u ZAG i u BEG
DeleteOvo je trebao biti odgovor INN-NS-u, ali me "prebacilo" ovde ispod
DeleteJesam ja to igde poricao ne.
DeleteSamo cisto sumnjam da ce napraviti liniju DXB-ZAG-BEG a zasto BEG pre nego ZAG samo da bi se dokazali i radi prestiza gde lete vec dve velike kompanije.
INN-NS
Emirates već godinama ima poslovnicu u Zagrebu. Kompanije ne otvaraju poslovnice ako nemaju ozbiljnih planova za destinaciju. Poslovnica je u Westinu*****
DeleteU BG poslovnica postoji sigurno 7-8 godina, pa nista do sada. Poslovnica nemora da znaci nista.
DeleteTo nije poslovnica kompanije niti u ZAG niti u BEG. To je GSA, dakle samostalna kompanija koja samo predstavlja kompaniju.
DeleteMozda EK hoce da naprave DXB-BEG-ZAG-BEG-DXB jer treba napuniti sirokotrupni avion, mozda je to vec gotova stvar i cekaju da ZAG otvori novi treminal.
DeleteOT: Što se događa na ZAG danas? Let iz DBV kruži već pola sata, iz AMS isto tako, preusmjeren let iz MUC preusmjeren na GRZ, par otkazanih letova...
ReplyDeleteMagla
Delete