Soon in Skopje?
A high ranking delegation from Qatar will visit Macedonia in March, during which the country’s national carrier is set to announce flights between Doha and Skopje. Macedonian press reports that Qatar Airways CEO, Akbar Al Baker, will be part of the delegation which will be sizing up potential investments in the country. The airline is believed to be planning to launch flights to Skopje at the end of the year. Qatar Airways is hoping to attract transit passengers from the Macedonian capital which would connect onto its flights to Australia, the Far East and South Africa.
Qatar Airways’ potential arrival into Skopje could shake up Flydubai’s operations to the city. Last October the low cost carrier launched two weekly flights between Dubai and Skopje. The service will increase to three times per week during the 2013 summer season. However, the majority of Flydubai’s passengers on the service connect onto Emirates’ flights to Australia. Qatar could also pose as added competition to Turkish Airlines which also depends on large amounts of transit passengers on its flights from the Macedonian capital. The airline will operate two daily flights between Istanbul and Skopje this summer.
Qatar Airways launched flights to Zagreb via Budapest earlier in 2012 and inaugurated services to Belgrade via Ankara in November last year. The airline does not hold fifth freedom rights on the Ankara - Belgrade - Ankara sector. On the other hand, it has been granted rights to sell tickets between Zagreb and Budapest. Whether Skopje will become the carrier’s third destination in the former Yugoslavia will be answered in March.
Comments
One thing is certain, the end of Turkish Airlines' Balkan domination is over.
SKP would be a great addition to their network - i'd guess partly aimed at VFR traffic ex Australia. The question is whether SKP is the interim stop to another destination (either existing or new), or becomes the terminating destination via somewhere back to Doha.
There is huge potential for exYU-M.East traffic: TK will have its work cut out if they face serious competition! OU should be starting flights to DXB (their 319s are capable non-stop), and the rumour mill abounds that EK is going to announce BEG...
TK double daily vs QR/FZ twice or thrice weekly is not a contest. My money is firmly on TK and Star Alliance as far as the Balkans market to Asia/Africa/Australia is concerned.
Shame, though. LOVE Berne airport.
Their flights were too expensive, though. Otherwise I would have used them more. They were really only good for last-minute one-way
Well that's kind of obvious - Croats alone can't ever fill half of the plane. Even on this topic there is nothing to compare between ZAG and BEG. Croatia (not ZAG) is a major tourist/seaside destination, as well as BUD, while those going to BEG (on QR) travel mostly for business or personal reasons. I am certainly not impressed that BUD+ZAG can therefore manage to fill an A321 70% of the time, given that both cities don't have any other direct link to the Middle-East. Belgrade has TK double daily, FZ and now even Pegasus - 4 companies competing on a similar market, without counting 2/3 daily flights to Moscow (one on A321 almost daily) that takes a lot of East/Asia-bound pax. QR can achieve success and push back TK in Belgrade only if they were to start daily flights, there is no other option.
Dude it is in amadeus what plane is going to deployed to zag. First before they even think about anything, they have to seperate the flights, than daily service to be put in place and than to see if there is a chance for a widebody. Typical uber alles propa
PRESS REPORTS ?? sorry but please provide a link to those "Macedonian press reports" where it is mentioned that Al Baker will be part of that delegation.... (or u just made that up)
All we know at the moment is
"At a meeting with the CEO of Qatar Airways, it was underscored that plans are being made for launching a direct charter line between Doha and Skopje by year's end"
and some delegation will visit Macedonia in MArch . and thats all.
I don't really see the difference between "small" and "large" plane with QR. They have great recliner seats and full IFE in A320 and A321, so service is on par with their widebodies. By the way, although tag flight makes the trip to DOH a bit too long (7 hours, roughly), extra meal service is cool and half-empty plane for half of the journey is also cool.
Also, their scheduling is such that connecting times in DOH are just shorter, so I don't really mind the tag.
By the way, I am from BEG - I suppose all said goes for ZAG as well. What I miss are daily flights.
is now ok ?
Air Arabia is maybe not the only airline that is misled.
Well I bought 2 return tickets for 1060 RSD which is even a bit less than 5 EUR per ticket. If you dont believe and really want to see it you can leave your e-mail and I will send you reservation.
At to Croatian ex-pats not many visit their homeland perhaps 20-30 000 visit Croatia each year, data for this is not available as most use Croatian passports so they're treated as domestic visitors. in 2012 number of domestic visitors who came from abroad was way up, 5.5% increase in arrivals.
2013 should be a record year for Croatian Tourism when 12.7 million visitors are expected and 75 million nights and revenue of 8€ billion.
Zagreb is also expected to do well, sales in Japan are doing well, South Korea as well, from where 120 000 and 80 000 visitors are expected, Chinese market is also important for Croatia and in 2012 20 000 Chinese visitors visited Zagreb, 2013 40 000 are expected.
Also JAL and Korean are introducing extra flights for Zagreb this summer, JAL plans 16 flights and Korean no data yet, but they are talking increased season flights.
Qantas won't be coming to Belgrade any time soon, they are happy with current routes they've got, no major expansion plans.
BTW its one of the best airlines in the world, and safest.
The curfew in SYD means airport cannot take any flights at times QR would need to operate to arr in DOH (~6am for onward connections) - a 9pm arrival and 11pm departure going on their current MEL/PER scheduling.
I don't know whether SYD needs another airport (that's not a discussion for this forum), but the problem isn't with Al Baker. He's obviously running a successful business without needing SYD as a destination!