Thursday, February 25, 2016
The Serbian Minister for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Zorana Mihajlović, and the South Korean Ambassador to Serbia, Lee Do-hoon, signed a bilateral air agreement in Belgrade yesterday with the aim of "facilitating better air links between the two countries". The new agreement, which will replace the one signed in 1990, will assist carriers from both countries in improving commercial cooperation and expanding their networks through codeshare arrangements, the Minister's office said in a statement. "The agreement opens up prospects for the establishment of up to three weekly nonstop flights between Serbia and South Korea. The distance between Belgrade and Seoul is around 8.300 kilometres, which means that the possible introduction of direct flights would cut travel time from the current twenty hours to 11-12 hours", Ms Mihajlović said.
Hehehe.. Ministarka misli da potpisivanje bilateralnog sporazuma o vazdusnom sporazumu automatski znaci i uvodjenje letova, tako je pre par meseci prilikom potpisivanja istog sporazuma najavila i letove Air Serbije za Meksiko! Inace ovo 87 sporazum koji je Srbija potpisala.
ReplyDeleteProbably just so that the JU code can be placed on EY flights. But still a good development.
DeleteAnd when would those 'flights' start?
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia's long term plans for long haul flights should include Seoul, Delhi, Mumbai, Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, Tokyo, Atlanta, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles and some cities in South America (maybe GRU or GIG) and Africa (maybe NBO, JNB and ADD). Unfortunately, probably none of these will happen soon (except maybe ORD, YYZ and PEK), but they should consider all of these cities if they really want BEG to be a HUB.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with those wishes, considering the amount of aircrafts needed with probably daily frequencies (to get real hub effect). I would limit that honestly only to really selected US/CA destinations and maybe PEK and PVG, especially since those destinations may also finction on less than daily connections, primarily due VFR potential (the again, with that segment you may have serious yield issues).
DeleteBut let's see in a few years time and also how this JFK works out.
With the slow works happening in BEG and the lack of changes and expansion at the airport, I doubt we will see much in the near future. BEG will become a problem to JU, and in some form currently is.
DeleteOut of the hands of JU is the fact our border police are not friendly, lazy and leave a negative impact. The other day I was leaving BEG and there was only 1 passport desk open for a large line (40 pax). A second officer who was arrogant and rude came to be of assistance! Passing into the transit zone and half of the airport workers are busy on their phones on personal conversations. This goes along with the lack of outlets as well with the horrendously over priced items in the duty free, illegal taxi drivers freely harassing everyone on arrivals as well as poor maintenance at the airport, lights not working in one of the toilets etc.
JU staff on the other hand are pleasant, helpful and professional.
I would also note that the airline or state needs to have really strong financial resources to make such investments (cerating and maintaining sucho global network). As already said, selcted US/CA and maybe Chinese routes are more than enough and also impressive to have (pending it is really viable and not just politics payed by taxes) for an airline coming from any ex YU contries, in this case Serbia. Let's see how JU goes further with the first long haul leap.
DeleteWhat about Caracas?
Delete@Anonymous...goal will be if BEG can attract ET to start BEG-ADD and to have penetration to Africa + that JU sign codeshare for specific routes...
DeleteThis might sound crazy, but there were rumors that ET was interested in starting BEG around 3-4 years ago. Can anyone confirm this.
DeleteIt is not crazy...there are still rumours re BEG-ADD
Delete^^^
DeleteAlot of airlines are pulling out of Caracas because they cannot bring money put of the country, that is their own money. American carriers have also reduce capacity because of this. GOL i believe was the recent carrier who completely pulled out of Caracas.
As for ADD, I belive a couple years back they started tapping into the BEG market offering flights via other European hubs. I wonder how that is doing. ET seem to be generally doing well. I think ADD is too far from us (ex-YU) to operate narrow body, and a widebody would be too much capacity. ET could gain from cargo going towards Africa from Serbia.
Flights between BEG and ADD can't happen because Serbia and Ethiopia need to sign an ASA first. JU can't even code-share to Ethiopia, all it has is a meaningless interline agreement with ET.
DeleteJATBEGMEL,
It could be doable with the A319, maybe with some minor weight penalties. ET sends their B737-700 to IST so maybe it's time for JU to start installing winglets on its A319s. ;)
Might be doable even without weight penalites, maybe.
Delete75,5 ton A319s can do 3.600nmi, but BEG-ADD is only about 2.350.
Actually I just checked ADD airport and it's at 7656 feet (2334 meters) and plus the climate is warm so it might not be possible to even get off the ground.
But the bigger question is how would ADD even fit into ASL's waves?
Aleksandar are you sure it's ADD you checked?
DeleteADD have 3700/3800m runway, and it's regularly used by ET's 777s.
Oh, you meant "at" as in...at :)
DeleteBut still, if ET's 737s and 777s can make it, then 319 probably could as well.
Whoops sorry my mistake. Should have been clearer and said it was at 7656 feet elevation.
DeleteWith an increasing amount of Asian tourists in Croatia, JU's growing regional network and OU's lack of expansion, I wonder if in the future JU could tap into the Asia-Croatia market, considering possibilities on 1 stop via BEG to ZAG, DBV, SPU, PUY, LJU. Serbia is in some small form looking into attracting Chinese tourists, the possibilities of more Chinese companies working in projects in Serbia, as well as growing Chinese tourist numbers in Croatia. Romania and Bulgaria to my understanding has a Chinese community as well. JU is the only airline in the ex-YU to be going long haul.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Air Serbia will want to increase its exposure to the Croatian tourist market but honestly believe that any major expansion into Croatia by Air Serbia will cause a reaction by the Croatian government.
DeleteWe could see OU looking to launch its own long haul flights sooner than we think if more people make their way to Croatia via Belgrade.
Even though it doesn't sound like a nice thing to say I just think its a normal human reaction from regional 'rivals'. We can find similar examples of this all over the world.
Croatia Airlines and the Croatian government might have the wish to start long haul in response to Air Serbia, but I honestly don't think that longhaul flights are a capability that Croatia Airlines possesses at the moment or could posses in the next few year.
DeleteAir Serbia is really doing a huge risk with long haul, and it will require a lot of support from the government and Etihad.
JATBEGMEL, I think the next step for ASL would include either ORD or YYZ. Another North American destination would complement JFK very well because it could be jointly marketed and have the same feeding flights. In other words, Air Serbia wouldn't have to completely expand their network for another North American destination as they would if they launched PEK.
@ Q400
DeleteJU had their Croatian problems with the relaunch of ZAG and that being double daily from day 1. The fact that it has lasted as long as it has, dropping only 2 of 14 flights this winter to go back to 14 next month shows there is a market, regardless of the fact a couple of Croatian newspapers have made false claims JU is operating in Croatia illegally. A few days back load for the evening flight to ZAG was 59 pax on the ATR.
@ Aleksandar
OU definately has a market for long haul, especially during the summer time. However, something talked on many times, is that OU is not run well. A SWOT analysis through comments of respected users on this blog shows that OU has failed to react. JU is growing next door yet they havnt reacted, the RJ's for expansion is for now just a F100 while JU brings in an A330 for expansion. There are European markets waiting to be opened by OU, opportunties are there yet OU has failed to react. What will give OU a good advantage as ZAG will be bigger and better with a brand new terminal with proper facilties JU doesnt have in BEG.
As for JU, I agree, JU needs to
focus on cementing its position in N. America, however in my comment above, I was bringing forward an observation of mine that an opportunity does exist. JU has capacity to grow, which was mentioned by Kondic himself with the fact that there has been a focus to bring up the CLF on existing routes and that current routes will increase in frequencies along with a couple of new routes this summer. JU will definately be interesting this year to watch.
I totally agree with your statement regarding OU Aleksandar but crazier things have happened.
ReplyDeletePersonally I welcome the extra competition and if it forces OU to be more proactive than I welcome that even more.