Wizz Air tipped for new Ohrid service

London - Ohrid flights to launch in July

The Mayor of Ohrid, Nikola Bakračeski, has confirmed that an airline has been selected to operate subsidised flights between London and Ohrid’s St. Paul the Apostle Airport this summer. While the name of the carrier has not been disclosed yet, budget airline Wizz Air is believed to have made an agreement with local authorities to run the service. Flights from London Luton Airport to the lakeside Macedonian town are set to launch on July 1 and operate twice per week. Earlier this month, Wizz Air announced it would introduce two weekly flights from Basel to Ohrid on July 1 as well. That service will be subsidised over the next three years by the Macedonian government.

Last year, the Municipality of Ohrid offered subsidies on the London - Ohrid route through an international tender, with Mayor Bakračeski singling out Wizz Air as a front runner to operate the service. However, there was no interest from any carrier. At the time, authorities were criticised for selecting to fund flights to London, out of all the possible destinations in Europe. There are few English tourists visiting Ohrid and a small number of people from south-western Macedonia and eastern Albania reside in the British capital. The tender also came late as any potential operator would have had just over two weeks to put tickets on sale and promote the new service.

St. Paul the Apostle Airport handles the bulk of its passengers during the summer months, with 70% of travellers who visit Ohrid still using Skopje Airport instead. Zurich-based Helvetic Airways is the only airline operating year long flights to the lakeside town. Local authorities estimate that some 9.600 passengers will use the London service each year. Tour operators in Ohrid believe that grants should have been offered for more sustainable and profitable routes such as Istanbul. However, on Friday, Mr. Bakrečski said that three weekly flights to Turkey’s largest city are likely to be launched soon.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:38

    I must admit London is an odd choice. I'm afraid this route won't work long term.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:37

    I think that many british and irish will travel to Ohrid, Struga and maybe to Pogradec in Albania etc!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous10:41

    Wizz Air will probably handle 700,000 from Macedonia in 2015.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:15

    Great news. I'm wondering whether this will be seasonal of year long? If I remember correctly the tender from last year was for seasonal flights (June - September). Now these flights start in July plus Wizz will already fly Basel all year.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous11:18

    OT: MNG A300F approaching BNX,
    izgleda da je MNB 391 IST-BNX redovna linija nedeljom.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:23

    I believe that this is aimed primarily at travelers from Albania. Ohrid is much closer than Skopje. The Ryanair flight to Podgorica does cater to a lot of people who are going to Albania. In the Summer, the BA flights to Tirana are super expensive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11:42

      That means soon flights to Italy from Ohrid cheaper than from Tirana!!!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous12:23

      you talking nonsense, its primarily aimed to attract Brits to spend few days on the Lake and thats it. If it attracts additional passengers from Albania even better

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:11

      If that were the case then the flights would have been to EIN not LTN. Which British person will fly to Ohrid, or the same British people who fly to SKP to go to Kosovo?

      Delete
  7. Anonymous11:56

    This is my guess.

    I think they were looking for a strictly tourist portion of passengers. Unlike if the decided to launch flights from Italy, Germany, Sweden etc.

    And the reason why they did that is the fact that they would get reasonable return in money, compensating those subsidies at least a little bit.

    English tourists would: spend more nights in hotels, instead in they own or their relative's houses (unlike diaspora)

    They would eat more in restaurants, unlike diaspora, that eats at home.

    They would visit other cities and sights as well, unlike diaspora, that already knows the most.

    Also, the fact there is not many English tourists justifies subsiding. They wanted to open Ohrid to a completely new portion and type of passenger. We can expect next year there would be even more British tourists, because this-year's ones had a good impression. They chose this as the way to open a completely new market.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous12:23

      Correct.
      Aiming British and other foreign tourists who would come through London airports is the main goal. Even now there are Brits visiting Ohrid region, but they're mostly on a round trips, since they use other airports to get there. This way more arrangements will be focused on Ohrid and Macedonia + for this tourists OH is not a summer, but year long destination.
      It would be wise if the hoteliers from Macedonia promote strongly OH and MK in Russia, adding a seasonal line to Moscow from OH which, together with announced to Instanbul and a seasonal to Belgrade could improve the airport and the tourism a lot.
      Cheers.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous22:58

      +1 to both. Nice to see decent reasoning around here.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous23:06

      I am sure 90% of Brits don´t know that Macedonia even exist!

      Delete
    4. ok, maybe 60% - but not 90%, this is not like you want to present

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:09

      We're busy fixing that.

      Cmok

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:04

      I 've got 10 brits working with me. Will check it out today and I let you know, but I am pretty sure at least 8 of them will fail to answer the question. They are all with uni degree Btw. Cheers!

      Delete
    7. Anonymous11:52

      OK!

      Delete
    8. Anonymous12:56

      why are u so desperately trolling ? Everybody in Europe knows every european country... Why is the Admin not deleting these nonsence posts not related to aviation

      Delete
    9. Anonymous13:42

      Woow I am impressed! 4 out of 10. Not bad :)
      We are not trolling about country of Republic of Macedonia or so, we are trolling about Brits and their basic educational probs. Macedonia is not only place they never heard about.. lol!

      Delete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous12:34

    Može li neko da mi postavi (ili pošalje link) - Sa kojih aerodroma Wizz Air ima najviše putnika / i na kojim rutama?

    Hvala unapred.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wishlist12:39

    your Air Serbia had great loads on their summer BEG-OHD route as reported on this blog (mainly O&D passengers which means even better yields then their SKP-route which relies on transit pax from SKP). totally ununderstandable why they stopped that service. I guess Etihad has never heard of Ohrid .

    Wishlist:
    TK or Pegasus to IST/SAW
    seasonal
    JU to BEG, FB to SOF, W6 DTM or FMM

    ReplyDelete
  11. did airserbia had good loads between belgrade and ohrid? how was the load factor?

    ReplyDelete
  12. when did Air Serbia served Ohrid? I know JAT was flying to Ohrid uring summer seasons but I am not sure if Air Serbia served the same route

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous17:11

      Flights stopped when Air Serbia launched.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous17:00

    Sad skoro svi Aerodromi u EX - YU imaju letove to je odlicno.
    INN-NS .

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous22:47

    http://flyingbosnian.blogspot.com/
    Bosnian aviation news blog
    Air Serbia to cancel code share agreement with BH Airlines.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous01:27

      FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!

      Delete
  15. Anonymous18:21

    we need malmö-Ohrid route as soon as possible...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous22:21

      +1
      and also a OHD - Eindhoven and Moscow-OHD or Moscow-SKP

      Delete

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