Record year for Sarajevo Airport
Sarajevo Airport, as well as Macedonia’s two international airports have continued to record strong growth. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s busiest airport handled 66.721 passengers in September, an increase of 10.6% compared to the same month last year. September also marked the airport’s tenth month of consecutive passenger growth. In the first nine months of the year, Sarajevo Airport has welcomed 520.045 travellers, up 14.5% on last year. For the whole of 2012, Sarajevo Airport recorded 580.058 passengers. As a result, the airport expects to handle its 600.000th passenger in November 2013, a first in its post war history. Turkish Airlines remains the busiest carrier operating out of Sarajevo, followed by B&H Airlines and Pegasus Airlines.
Sarajevo Airport CEO Ivica Veličan says the airport is likely to extend its working hours next year and become a 24 hour operational airport. “We have received requests from several airlines to stay open throughout the night. This is likely to become a reality soon and it would mean new employment opportunities”, Mr. Veličan explained. The airport is also planning to offer its passengers a range of new services. Next month a slot club is expected to open its doors inside the terminal building while the airport has also announced it will open a prayer room next year due to a significant number of requests from passengers.
Meanwhile, the airports in both Skopje and Ohrid have continued to see their numbers climb. In September the two airports handled a combined total of 106.164 passengers, an increase of 21% compared to the same month last year. In the first nine months of 2013 the two airports have handled a total of 838.994 passengers, up 17% on the same period last year. Skopje Airport expects to see its strong growth continue into next year as Wizz Air prepares to base a second aircraft in the Macedonian capital and launch several new routes.
Looks like we're gonna have Etihad A346 and A332 at BEG
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean? I know the A330-200 is arriving tomorrow but are they planning on sending their A340-600 here as well?
DeleteIt's nice to see Shkupi doing so well.
DeleteI got your Shkupi... hanging!
DeleteWhat are they coming for? Extra flights for political/economical delegation or just aircraft change due to high pax loads?
ReplyDeleteMy guess for the A330 is that its for the Air Serbia who've just trained in Abu Dhabi and perhaps a new batch may be sent over.
ReplyDeleteYeah but they are not going to train 200 people for them to send an A330-200. Plus, aren't they training a part of them in Dusseldorf? Or is the pilots?
DeleteClosest reason why I'd think that they would send the A330. Either that or there may be a maintenance check on one of the A319s and there are not enough A320s to spare. It cannot be for Hajj as those are arranged to fly through Istanbul then directly to Jeddah/Medina.
DeleteI also think its for technical reasons. Etihad does not have spare aircraft, at least they don't have any narrobodies sitting around.
DeleteHowever, let's hope that soon they will send their A330s on a regular basis. :)
Request on a comment from yesterday:
ReplyDeleteCarrying more then 247.000 passengers, Sarajevo - Istanbul route was the busiest route by number of passengers in the first 9 month of 2013, but not by frequency on this route.
OT: Adria is back in London Geatwick in 2014:
ReplyDeleteNew route: Ljubljana - London Gatwick starting May 17, 2014.
JP 450 __3__6_ 17MAY2014 - 18OCT2014 LJU 1925 LGW 2040 319
New route: London Gatwick - Ljubljana starting May 17, 2014.
JP 451 __3__6_ 17MAY2014 - 20SEP2014 LGW 2120 LJU 0025/+1 319
+1
DeleteWhy does LGW-LJU finish a month earlier than the other way?
DeleteI've noticed just one comment on the headline "Sarajevo and Skopje stay strong in September".
ReplyDeleteI wonder if everything's OK with me.
+1
DeleteWhat's wrong with you guys? So what if someone wants to share an off-topic that could be interesting to someone? The only reason why I am reading comments is to find out if someone has some news that was not published here yet, regardless of the topic.. So I don't think it's complexes, otherwise, most probably news about some companies, airports would not have a single comment.
DeleteGreat news for Sarajevo.....keep it up!!!
ReplyDeleteI just want to add something. I am happy for Skopje that is doing well , but also to add , I don't think so Macedonian diaspora from Australia will use Air Serbia, they will use EY for sure but to transit via IST and codeshare with TK. somehow is coming cheaper then all the way EY/JU to SKP.. anyway is two stops , no matter is it AUH/BEG - SKP or AUH/IST - SKP
ReplyDeleteAlso TK provide excellent connection to Australia , no matter is it the morning or evening flight.Morning flight usually is transatlantic Usa/Canada. I prefer the evening flight because it is only 1-2 hours waiting in IST for connection to SIN/HKG/BKK./ICN/PEK/NRT/PVG then to AUS/NZ arriving at the morning . I hope soon TK will stick to A330 daily to SKP or at least one of the flights. Few months ago on the way back to Aus , the evening flight was 80% full with passengers continuing to Australia. Half of them join TK to BKK, half of them TK to SIN , half of them TK to KUL , and few to ICN and PVG. I was so suprised how TK has big percentage of MKD market. I am still interested to see how Fly Dubai doing on route DXB/SKP they have some % of passengers coming from Australia too , but still I am thinking TK is beating them. Recently they had good prices with EK, return 1300$ . TK similar prices too, OS/TG around $1650 but EY/JU was $1800