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| New airline to launch Rome - Belgrade flights |
The European Commission has given the go-ahead for Etihad Airways to buy a 49% stake in Italy‘s Alitalia, but said the two carriers, as well as Air Serbia, must allow competitors to fly between Rome and Belgrade. The deal, inked in June, will reinforce Etihad‘s presence in Europe, where it already owns minority stakes in the Serbian carrier, Air Berlin and Aer Lingus. Italian authorities have expressed hope that it will end Alitalia‘s longstanding flirt with bankruptcy. "The Commission examined the competitive effects of the proposed acquisition and concluded that on all affected routes, with the exception of the Rome - Belgrade route, the transaction does not raise any serious competition concerns", the European Commission wrote in a statement.
The European Union‘s executive body feared that a monopoly on flights between Rome and Belgrade "could lead to higher prices and a loss of service quality for passengers". It says, “To dispel the Commission's competition concerns on the Rome - Belgrade route, Alitalia and Etihad submitted commitments to release up to two daily slot pairs at Rome Fiumicino and Belgrade airports to one or more interested new entrants. Alitalia and Etihad also committed to provide further incentives, such as the possibility for a new entrant to acquire grandfathering rights after a fixed period of time. Furthermore, Alitalia and Etihad committed to offering a special prorate agreement, a fare combinability agreement, an interline agreement and access to their frequent flyer programme to new entrants, to make entry more likely”.
Alitalia and Air Serbia hold a duopoly over the Rome - Belgrade route and codeshare on each other’ flights, making it unclear which other airline could step in to take the conceded slots. Late last month, easyJet terminated its three weekly service between the two capital cities due to poor ticket sales. The budget airline is not the first to suspend flights between Rome and Belgrade. In 2012, Wizz Air cancelled the same route citing high seasonality. In its conclusion, the Commision says, “These commitments adequately address the competition concerns identified by the Commission and should facilitate new entry on the Rome - Belgrade route”. Alitalia, plagued by decades of mismanagement and political meddling in its affairs, has not turned a profit since 2002. Ahead of the deal, Alitalia CEO, Gabriele Del Torchio, said Etihad would invest 560 million euros in the ailing airline. However, he also said at the time that more than 2.200 jobs would have to be slashed - almost a fifth of the workforce.
Comments
They want AZ and JU to give up slots to competitors, on a route where even 2 well known LCCs withdrew, due to poor tkt sales ...
Obviously, nothing better to do with their time than to make such huge earth shattering decisions which will "clearly" be in the consumer's interests ...
http://imgur.com/2GuJGds
WTF? Why would AZ and JU offer FF access to, for example Easy or Wizz?!?!
Air Serbia announced 1 Mil EUR profit for 2014. If they dump all of it into building a new terminal, they only need 299 million more to make it. I am trying to say JU needs external investor for the new terminal, as it will probably cost at least 300 mil EUR or more if ZAG price tag can be used as a reference. EC will likely not allow UAE investor for both the airline AND the airport.
As for the fees, you are probably aware of the published contract and Air Serbia discounts at the airport until the end of 2016.
I know that it is essential for Air Serbia's growth to be alleviated from the high prices at BEG.
Radovan, Son & Co.
What the European Commission is doing is that they are forcing a new airline to enter the market, one that will most likely rely on the O&D market. Because they have to rely on this relatively small market, they will never be able to offer more than three weekly flights, thus having a clear disadvantage when facing JU or AZ.
So, having Wizz Air or easyJet return will not change anything. However, if Vueling would enter the market then we might see a different outcome. First of all, Vueling successfully operated flights from Barcelona which means they have some brand awareness in Serbia.
Second of all, they are currently building a hub in Rome so they could do what JU and AZ have been doing for years now, offer connections via FCO.
Not to mention how come they did not ask the same for TXL-BEG and FCO-TXL routes...
Here we have two airports with loads of slots available anytime (with possibly some restrictions at FCO, but nothing dramatic really) and no competition waiting to step in.
I would love to see a LCC operating the route as well, as this is what kept the route fairly cheap all this time. But from what we've seen, LCCs are not willing to do it anymore.
LQSA 151200Z VRB01KT 2000 BR FEW006 10/10 Q1014 BECMG 6000 NSW
Just visibility 2000m and few clouds at 600 feet. METAR report from 1200 UTC.
Steta je sto JU i EI toliko malo saradjuju posto za sad bi to bila najbolja saradnja za letove za USA dok ne pocnu direktno iz BEG 2015.
INN-NS
-- Charlie
Now Vucic says they could get 500-600 M Eur. Airport increased capacity by less than 1,5 M and had minor renovations since, so where did this massive valuation increase come from?
One explanation is just hot air. Second one is inclusion of other Airports of Serbia and GoS plan to keep expanding BEG on their own. Sure, that increases value beyond 250 M. Now if GoS can also find partial EU investor for the second runway, BEG could really one day be worth 500-600 M Eur. Now if at that point non-EU investor wants to add 300 M Eur to the mix for building new terminal, non-Eu investment in the overall Airports of Serbia company would be less than 40%.
Thing is, GoS still does not have that primary EU investor and future operator lined up.
Prije bi es mozda racunalo sa 4-4,5 mil.
Great idea. I think that the space that you have added to the terminal is an interesting way to add to the current terminal. A good idea would be in you plan would be to extend that apron for larger aircraft with capability to serve for smaller Airbus/Boeing (B737/A320) aircraft,
Funding any project at BEG will be interesting as the government doesnt seem to be the best with finances. Giving the airport to foreign investors doesnt seem to be going anywhere either. But this is Serbia, who knows. Who would of thought we would have Air Serbia 2 years ago.
How did you made that picture? I mean Terminal 3
@Anon 7:31, the software is called Pixlr, and I copied Alicante's terminal. Unfortunately I couldn't quite figure out how to make everything to scale, so the 737s at T3 look smaller than the ATRs near T2 in my picture.
I am not looking for official statements, just (educated) guesses on what would make more sense.
Vucic today: "Na pitanje zašto se prodaje manjinski deo EPS-a Vučić je rekao da bi voleo da se na mnogo mesta uspostavio sistem kao u "Er Srbiji".
"Izgovoriću tu jeres. Voleo bih da imamo sistem kao što je u "Er Srbiji" na mnogo mesta. Građani će razumeti ovo što sam rekao", poručio je premijer."
They way I understand it, he doesn't just want Serbian (partisan) management nor foreign investor with complete management team shipped from another country (as Germans and some other EU countries prefer to run their companies in Serbia).
It looks like he would rather see professional team led by Serbian diaspora/expat experts with some of the foreign managers in the mix. If you look at CV's of several top mgmt levels at Air Serbia, that's the picture.
I could be wrong, but that seems to be his message, and it could very well work for the Airport one day.
Coral Economy: 240 standard seats sa IFE ja se nadam
Tako je opremljen A332 od EY onda ce i od JU biti tako opremljen sigurno.
Ja se nadam da ce dobiti nesto vece od A330 family :P ali ja sam jedini ovde sto u to izgleda veruje =D
INN-NS
http://imgur.com/kcEK1mN
grohotom se smijem
The moment we saw Sasa Vlaisavljevic come into the picture at BEG is the moment I lost hope for positive change at the airport. A professional team cannot be one with him in it. We all saw what happened during his time in Jat.
Serbia doesnt need to constantly look beyond its borders to find quality workers. Serbia has alot of educated people finishing universities only to be left without jobs, or only finding a position outside of their field. Those lucky enough to leave to find employment abroad dont necessarily look at coming back, because there they have good salaries and a stable job.
The Air Serbia situation has impressed me so far, however saying that there are still many challenges the company faces from yesterday, today and will be there tomorrow. I doubt that the few who have returned to Serbia working in JU are exactly satisfied. The salary and benefits to start is much higher abroad.
Party based employment is still common in Serbia, as well as the mentality of finding employment through connections rather than knowledge. The rapid first year of expansion and change in Air Serbia should of brang forward future plans for BEG but nothing more has come through other than replacing tiles and adding fresh paint to the existing terminal, which itself has been scandalously slow. The terminal itself is giving a claustrophobic feeling even before the increase in pax numbers, in a terminal not designed to be a transit hub, and all this is with narrow bodied a/c.
Basic things like getting rid of illegal taxi drivers is still an issue at the airport, Im just wondering how they intend to solve a bigger problem such as capacity issues. Talk is cheap and everyone in Serbia knows this very well. Reading something is one thing, believing it is another.
As I mentioned in previous articles, I expect to see BEG-FCO flourish with transfer pax travelling between the 2 cities. I think this is what the EU sees as well and is why they want to react before both carriers make any move.
Im all up for competition, but BEG-FCO is easily found for 100€ return. How much lower can it go?
There is a lot of Serbian expats who would, given the option, return in a heartbeat. You are right, they can make more money abroad but you have to take into account cost of living in Serbia and everywhere else. Also, there is also a nostalgia factor which for a lot of people (not all definitely) can't be disregarded. There are other factors as well that for someone living in Serbia would maybe be silly but they definitely all play a role.
Maybe you went through something similar yourself but most of us that took off for "greener pastures" had a crash course in modern capitalism when we came here. We had to adapt and do that very quickly and i think that is what separates us. Serbia has a lot of smart and educated individuals. The problem I think is that most of those people have the same attitude toward work, management etc. like their parents did. Times have changed and a lot of them have tough time adjusting.Again, there is probably a lot of good examples as well but this is just my impression from what I see and hear every year I go back home for vacation. Good friend of mine was recruited by the EU based corporation to go back and lead their Serbian division after working in the same filed here in Canada for 10-15 years. You should hear his experience. For example, first guy he met at the airport was one of his two drivers. His reasoning was why do I need any drivers, I know how to drive but a lot of people told him how can you be a CEO of such a big company and have no driver. This is just one silly example (and trust me he told me a bunch of similar details) of how attitudes of people are different there.
Rodney Marinkovic, Kraljevo /// Sydney
However I have to admit that the previous commissioner for transport was a rather competent man (Siim Kalas from Estonia). In the new commission transport was given to a completely clueless person!