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| Wizz Air sheds light on new destinations, fees and Macedonian subsidies |
Low cost carrier Wizz Air is negotiating potential new flights to Podgorica, Pristina and Sarajevo. Speaking at a news conference yesterday, Wizz Air‘s CEO, Jozsef Varadi, confirmed to EX-YU Aviation News that the airline is in talks with authorities in both Montenegro and Kosovo, but noted that high fees are deterring the airline from expanding further into the former Yugoslavia. “We can confirm talks with Montenegro and Kosovo. However, airport costs are a problem and we have been dragged into long negotiations”, Mr. Varadi said. The CEO added that he is hopeful to conclude successful negotiations with these airports soon. Late last year, Predrag Jelušić, the Montenegrin State Secretary for Tourism, said, “I believe we are very close to reaching a deal with Wizz Air to launch flights from Montenegro to Germany and Poland”. Meanwhile, last month, Pristina Airport hinted Wizz Air would soon introduce flights to the city.
Commenting on the former Yugoslav market, Mr. Varadi said that the budget carrier is “very happy”, emphasising Macedonia as an example of a successful partnership. “We are very satisfied with Macedonia. The Balkans are one of our success stories. We will look at new opportunities in Macedonia as long as we are satisfied with the marketplace”. Skopje Alexander the Great Airport is Wizz Air’s busiest hub in the former Yugoslavia with 557.376 passengers handled last year. The airline will introduce five new routes from the Macedonian capital this summer and base a third aircraft in the city. Mr. Varadi rebuffed claims that the budget airline could face problems from the European Commission for subsidies it receives from the Macedonian government to maintain part of its operations from the country. “Financial support is provided on a transparent basis through public tenders. We are fine and we have no issues with Brussels”, the CEO said. Last year, Pristina Airport announced it would lodge a complaint with the European Commission against Skopje Airport over what it says are “incentives which have created unfair competition in the region”.
The low cost airline also hopes to conclude talks with Sarajevo Airport. As reported yesterday, Wizz Air’s CEO directly blamed high fees for the carrier’s absence from the city. As EX-YU Aviation News learns, the budget carrier was close to announcing flights to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital late last year, however, talks between the two sides broke down in the final stages. Despite problems with Sarajevo, the airline is “highly excited for Bosnia and Herzegovina” and hopes to replicate its success in Tuzla across the country. Wizz Air will base an aircraft at Tuzla Airport this June and launch four new destinations.
As of this summer, Wizz Air will have three bases in the former Yugoslavia – Skopje, Belgrade and Tuzla – and will maintain flights to Ljubljana, Niš, Ohrid and Split as well. The airline recently brought forward the launch of its Basel - Niš service by a week. The flights will now commence on June 29. Wizz Air has previously said it is happy with booking numbers on the route as it sold 350 tickets during the first month of sales. The airline will maintain two weekly flights between the two cities and launch services between Malmo and Niš as well.
Comments
Ima li ista da Balkanci znaju, a da je to uspjesno na svjetskom trzistu, a da je "domace"?
Ovo se odnosni pogotovo na Hrvatsku kao turisticku destinaciju No. 1 u regijonu.
Let Njemacka - Split nije nikad ispod 220€.
Od Juna do Septembra za let za Dalmaciju se placa i do 350€...
No, kada bi teoretski tako nešto bilo moguće ja bih se pre ugledao na Ryanair model nego na Wizz jer mi čitava ta Wizz priča deluje da stoji na staklenim nogama i da vrlo lako može fulati na kraju. Teško je izvući ozbiljne novce u čitavoj istočnoj Evropi a kamoli u exYU a bez ozbiljnih novaca njihovi će vlasnici jednostavno ugasiti posao.
[ot]
Нажалост компанија која је планирала летове из Београда за Црну Гору као и за Загреб никада није добила дозволу од црногроских и хрватских власти те је на крају била приморана да оде у стечај.
Наравно ни сама Србија није била спремна да им изађе у сусрет због Јата. Јако ми је жао јер су стварно изгледали као кул и модерна фирма.
Све у име протекционизма полупропалих авио компанија.
Wizz priča je osnovana upravo na Ryanair modelu, s tim što je Ryanair u poslednjih pola godine do godinu povećao troškove po nekoliko osnova (GDS, marketing, etc) i već ima slabiju strukturu troškova u poređenju sa Wizzom. Uostalom, biće puno jasnije čim sve brojke postanu javne kroz mesec dva.
Ali na zalost, Velja im nije dao i to je finito bilo. Sa druge strane - oni cetvroromotorci mi nikada nisu bili logicno resenje za low-cost... ipak je to skup avion za odrzavanje. Ali sobzirom kakav je bio rejting zemlje u to vreme, verovatno nista bolje nisu mogli ni da iznajme. Steta...
kompaniji nedostaju mali turbo elisni avionic izmedju 20 I 50 sedista. Prirodno sa niskim cenama imali bi pune avione. Sa takvim konceptom koji bi aktivirao u pravom obimu aerodrome pout Nisa, Morave, Ponikve, Vrsca, Banja Luke, Mostara, Tuzle, Osjeka... Prirodno sa ostalim malim aerodromima u okolnim zemljama. Wizz Air za sada nema takav concept. Za druge ne mislim da razmisljaju...
Rodney & Son. Kraljevo +++ Sydney.
it is very hard for a "no frills" company to use small airliners.
Even though, you might be right, Wizz should try to use one ATR72 and one ATR42 in order to give a helpful hand to their A320, I mean their A320 could feed on these turboprops.
Нараво, данас је ситуација знатно другачија јер су се појавили нови играчи али нека буде за наук другима колико политика може бити штетна.
I think they should complete them before May, they need the gates for charter flights.
you've paraphrased him essentially!
At that time, the supervisory board appointed the chief of one of the three airport operator shifts to role play the CEO managing the airport, and kept him at that position for two years - actually as long as they could.
He demolished the operator, putting all the relevant things upside down, and the airport operator isn't turned around a year and a half afterwards. In my humble opinion, BNX has a pretty nice potential, but will not be used properly as long as this government, it means the current politics, is in the driving seat.
Serbia and BiH. It is nice to have traffic on smaller airports but price is too high for Balkan countries.
may be, my post from 11:48 AM pulled or even forced you to pop into with your, so I'd like to try to give a bit of explanation.
I can understand, you are annoyed with the frequent statements about the Ex-Yu-airports having so "great potentials", and great potentials, and always great potentials and bla bla bla... Such frequent things affect me similarly.
But please notice that the "great potential" wasn't mentioned in my post.
"Pretty" means "quite" but not " great". When I say "pretty nice potential" I think the traffic there can reach a level at which the airport business can pay off or in a large percentage pay off. That's all.
Thanks
If 90% of balkan population doesn't fly, why should they pay for those 10% to fly cheaper?
Ryanair, Wizzair and similar business models are just another way of transferring taxpayers money to privately owned companies, something people on this blog often refer to as corruption. If we are talking about free market nothing should be subsidized in any way. What is the point in artificially created demand for air travel with prices ranging from 50 or less euro for RT?
Tourists? What is the purchasing power of tourist that can't afford to pay 200 eur for RT ticket from one end of Europe to another?
When volcano errupted on iceland Croatian tourist board financed bed and breakfast for "Ryanair tourists" that didn't have more than 20 euro with them. A great example of what taxpayers are paying through lowcost subsidies. Everybody should do business under the same terms (please dont refer to air serbia and belgrade apt. - they employ huge number of people so large amount of money earned there stays in serbia, while with the likes of ryanair, wizzair and such airlines that is not the case).
ExYu is doing the way it is because foreign is always better for us, we should be more proud of our countries, respect ourselves and our neighbours more, think in a broader manner, sometimes cheap can be very expensive, when people from our domestic airlines and travel agencies lose their jobs, when money leaves to foreign companies....
my2cents
500 Eur per month, not miserable 30-40% of population but more like 75% and then we can have more regional airports working for money of local people. But no political party at exYU terrain works for that. Then we can think about summer charters everywhere in Italy and whole year traffic on small airports with fees greater than 3 Eur. Till then we can read about nonprofit making Wizz and local stars spending money at Thailand.
INN-NS
INN-NS
INN-NS
Sad ce verovatno neko reci da lazem da je dobro popunjeno
INN-NS
Thank you.
Rodney
Ja sam cuo da su dobro popunjeni.
INN-NS
I swear INN-NS you are a legend.
I hear many critics of SJJ-CPH (740nm segment), which is an extreme.
Thanks in advance!
m2c
I hear many critics of SJJ-CPH (740nm segment), which is an extreme.
Thanks in advance!
m2c
Pa ti ljudi pisu lazne brojeve ali verujte njima nema veze ;)
INN-NS
I hear OTP is doing great as well. From March ASL will have QR to compete with on BEG-SOF O&D segment (not such a huge market you'll agree).
Thank you Anonymous at 17.46. That's a decent enough load and I am sure that it will improve as time goes by.
I remember up until 2009, flying on the OA Atr-42 between ATH and BEG was a living nightmare, two hours twenty minutes.
So AT7 could work for INI (to VIE and IST) , both around 350nm. Perhaps a new company as someone suggested, with code share with Austrian and/or Turkish.
m2c
Uc u LCC pricu danas morate biti ili ludi ili se zvati Bill Gates.
TK must be mad about IST.
You don't know basics of modern air business!!!!
INI-NS
Difference between some Mongolian city with the same standard and Niš/Tuzla is that the latter are high migrating areas and believe me it is quite enough for airports to keep running.
Let's see how TLV performs in summer. I'm sure Kiev would have performed better than Warsaw, very few choices for travel out-there currently (compared to WAW).
INN-NS
http://www.b92.net/biz/vesti/srbija.php?yyyy=2015&mm=02&dd=05&nav_id=955052
INN-NS
:D
Hahahaha
obično ga ne zovu Nedjo nego Čubro.
In 2013, Wizz was interested in using BNX. Wizz wanted to open its first base in the Balkans. Fallen through.
If these two companies hadn't been rejected, BNX would have handled at least 80000 pax in 2014. And probably BNX would handle more than 100,000 passengers this year.
how can you be so opinionated.