Alitalia returning to Skopje after six years
The Italian national carrier Alitalia will launch services from Rome to Skopje starting May 1. The new service will operate on a daily basis and marks Alitalia’s return to the Macedonian capital for the first time since it suspended daily flights from Milan on January 8, 2008 citing low profitability. The flights will be operated by Alitalia’s subsidiary Alitalia CityLiner on the 88 seat Embraer E175 jet. Further details on the new service can be found here. Tickets are already on sale through the airline’s website. The news comes after the indebted Italian national carrier, which is negotiating a cash injection from Etihad Airways in return for shares, said late last year it was considering launching services from Rome to Skopje, Pristina, Zagreb and Sarajevo, to be implemented between 2013 and 2016.
Alitalia will face direct competition on its Rome route from Italian airline Livingston which launched flights to Skopje last December, stepping in to replace replace the bankrupt Belle Air Europe. Alitalia has a limited presence in the region. It operates flights to Belgrade and last year launched a new service from Rome to Podgorica which has proved sucsesfull. Besides Skopje, the airline once flew to Sarajevo and Zagreb and operated seasonal summer flights to Dubrovnik and Split as well. It is tipped the airline’s next destination in the former Yugoslavia will be Zagreb to which it once operated up to two daily flights prior to its financial problems in late 2008.
The arrival of Alitalia to Skopje is expected to further boost passenger numbers at Macedonia’s busiest airport. During the summer Wizz Air will base a second Airbus A320 in Skopje and launch flights to Charleroi, Beauvais, Cologne and Hahn. In addition, starting this summer, Wizz Air will boost frequencies on its flights to Basel Mulhouse, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, Malmo and Memmingen thanks to the new jet.
Comments
On a side note, god I love these embraers, so comfy and most importantly no dreaded middle seat. Although Alitalia puts 88 seats which is roughly 30 inches, seat width is greater than both the 737 and A320.
Moreover after the pull out CSA there was not a single Sky Team member at the airport and connections to Spain/Portugal and South America were rather poor. Finally some legacy carrier starts operating.
@ ex-yu andmin:
Btw. There are actually 2 flights on Tue/Thu.
One leaves SKP at 07.00 a.m. and the other at 05.05 p.m. Am I wrong? I find this flights on kayak.
And why is the flight 1:50? I know that sound stupid but distance is roughly same as vienna and that flight is half an hour shorter? weird.
Indeed. Did a quick search on one of these travel search engines
skopje-rome-skopje
dep:23/5 ret:26/5
Alitalia 248 euros
Air serbia 195 euros
27% cheaper, that's crazy!!! I mean you can't outdump the abu-dhabian's but that sort of difference in this region is not nothing. The downside ofcourse is its 3 hours longer via belgrade, this extra time may dissuade some but ...
What makes it more interesting is that for those same dates their ticket to Belgrade is 172 and to Sofia 188 euros, I think they are going to need to adjust prices soon, not the best start but a welcome addition none the less.
Alitalia is obviously not focusing so much at macedonian gastarbeiter in Italy, their main market is West Europe (and beyond) via FCO > Skopje
i agree, they shoud be cheaper then Austrian to stand a chance.
The flight SKP-MXP was 2 hours, ( no idea maybe the embraer is slower lol )
My point was that i didn't expect them to go for that strategy, at least not right away as they have been completely absent from Skopje for 5-6 years and there was no indication that they would do something like this, when they announced they were thinking of restarting flights i personally thought they would have the standard 2-3 flights a week to begin with and then expand if they are successful. Thats what I meant by aggressive.
Don't you dare call the embraer slow!!!
Vienna - Moscow via Belgrade, return trip, all taxes included 119 EUR!
http://www.airserbia.com/en/home/main_menu/special_offer/happy_friday.html
Fare 1.279 RSD
Adult traveller(s)
Surcharge (YQAP) 4,652 RSD
CAD Passenger Charge - SERBIA (RFEB) 228 RSD
Passenger Service Charge - SERBIA (RSLO) 930 RSD
Security Charge - SERBIA (LGSE) 768 RSD
Passenger Service Charge (PAX), International ? AUSTRIA (ZYAE) 2,106 RSD
Tax description unavailable (QDAP) 814 RSD
Passenger Security Charge - AUSTRIA (ATSE) 895 RSD
International Terminal Use Charge- RUSSIAN FEDERATION (RIDP) 1,638 RSD
Security Charge - RUSSIAN FEDERATION (UHSE) 581 RSD
12,612 RSD
x 1 adult(s) = 12,612 RSD
total taxes = 12,612 RSD
Ticket Service Charge 1.163 RSD
All in all, JU gets:
Fare: 1.279 RSD
Surcharge (Fuel): 4.652 RSD
TSC: 1.163 RSD
TOTAL for Air Serbia: 7.094 RSD (~61 EUR) for 4 legs (VIE-BEG, BEG-MOW, MOW-BEG, BEG-VIE)
There are no Livingston flights anymore! You got it wrong
I don't think SKP can beat SJJ when it comes to high prices for transatlantic flights
LOL. Aren't you a bit desillusioed? Skopje isn't Madrid or Barcelona as a matter of fact. These Skopje topics (comments) remind me more and more of TK Aviation topic on A.net, fulll of drooling lunatics in a race to the moon.
lol. There will be some happy Muscovites looking for a bargain. Is the cargo hold large enough for all the required vodka!!
Go AirSerbia Go!!! but be careful please... :)
Your initial point was spot on, transatlantic options are very, very limited and ofcourse Turkish and Austrian know this and (over)charge accordingly. We'll have to wait to see what impact alitalia has on prices in the long run but initial offers are not encouraging.
Middle of may to new york Austrian is €693, turkish €738, Alitalia €852, hmmm i wonder who I should fly with...
It gets depressing when you compare to other nearby airports the cheapest available 1 stop flights...
Skopje €693
Prishtina €648 7% cheaper
Belgrade €596 16%
Thessaloniki €578 20%
Sofia €490 41% cheaper thats nuts...