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| Air Serbia to use "infrastructure of other airlines" for New York service |
Etihad Airways and Alitalia will both provide support to Air Serbia for its planned flights to New York next year, the President and CEO of the Emirati carrier, James Hogan, has said. Furthermore, Air Serbia plans utilise an aircraft from a partner airline for its upcoming transatlantic service. "They’ve [Air Serbia] just announced that they’re going to operate from June from Belgrade to New York. They could not have even introduced that because they’re taking an aircraft from the family. They have to introduce a whole fleet management group. Alitalia is doing the pilot training. We’ll do the cabin-service training. So they’re able to operate a virtual service using the infrastructure of the other airlines. Structurally, we continue to work on how we get economies of scales collectively", Mr Hogan said. Previously, he noted, "Another advantage is that we have so many Serbians at Etihad, we will be able to bring Serbians back into Air Serbia that have long haul experience, because you have to have experience within your cabin crew ratio".
Air Serbia is considering lease options for the A330-200 with Etihad Airways Partner airlines, with Jet Airways the likely source of the jet. Mr Hogan underlined the importance the partnership is having on the Serbian carrier. "As a group we operate 700 aircraft. That means you can take Air Serbia with ten A320s that we’re able to get the price of A320s at our price, which they would never have gotten as a standalone airline. Air Serbia is profitable and doing well". Mr Hogan noted that while 2016 will be a strong year for Etihad itself, its growth in Europe will be minimal. "In our five-year plan, our growth is mainly in China and Africa. China, within our network group, is very important. The market's opening and people are travelling", he said.
Air Serbia, which is undergoing the Federal Aviation Administration's 129 certification process in order to commence services to the United States, has again reiterated its commitment to launch transatlantic flights. The airline's CEO, Dane Kandić, told the December issue of the "Elevate" magazine, "In June, and subject to regulatory approval, we are going to launch a flight that people in the region have been waiting for since 1992. We are going to reconnect Belgrade and New York". He added, "Our plan is to operate five weekly flights to New York on a modern Airbus A330 aircraft. On the other two days, we will offer codeshare connections with our close partner Air Berlin. The service will make travel incredibly more convenient between the United States and the region, and it will also underline how much we are growing".
Comments
poletanja Er Srbije na let preko Atlantika. Gotovo cetvrt veka je dovoljno da vidimo taj dan. Bice velicanstven, u to nemoze biti sumnje. To jeste izvesno, sigurno ostvaruje se. Da je Blagoslovljena Nova 2016 Godina.
Srecno Er Srbijo. Let take of✈!
Rodney & Suporters✈✈✈. LYKV✈SYD.
In the meantime, you go raise false accusations and shoot them down yourself so that it makes you feel better.
Before, Air Serbia used to have big issues with on-time performance, and often flights were delayed by hours. This has greatly died down and now Air Serbia is beyond average.
Also, people on this very site were constantly writing about how Air Serbia had a low load factor, but it has gotten better and the LF is still rising.
And when ASL was still setting up, so many people were claiming that the low fares meant that ASL was soon to collapse and that the pax would go away once the fares were raised. Now ASL has reasonable yields.
Having a negative outlook is absolutely fine, but it is disgusting when this outlook is motivated by hatred.
For example Air Transat started selling Toronto-Zagreb flights which start in June back in September.
Now, as far as ATH goes, they will be going up against DL's double daily flights, UA's seasonal operations out of EWR and AA will most likely bring back its seasonal PHL route.
On top of that, there are TK, LH, LX and OS which are all cooperating with A3 (which has its codes on LH's transatlantic flights). I am talking of Greece because it's the second biggest market in the region, the first being IST.
Without the reinforced regional network this JFK route will fail miserably especially since you can already fly out of BEG for €420 either through LH or via LO. Even Alitalia is dirt cheap with €447.
If JFK flights are not going to be seasonal then I guess JU will not be able to have major schedule fluctuations as it had this year. One advantage is that in winter ATH doesn't have any direct flights to the US so that's a big opportunity for JU.
'The service will make travel incredibly more convenient between the United States and the region.'
Actually, it will make it incredibly more convenient for the Serbian market but not so much for the region. For the region it's yet another option so it doesn't change much for them. Whether you are connecting in BEG or VIE makes little difference, it's still not a direct flight.
And even while ASL was in full expansion (2014) and announcing new routes every week or so, Purger for example kept on insisting how all this dumping will stop very soon and then Etihad will give up because they will have bigger worries.
Even when Etihad added new airlines to their alliance (Alitalia) it was immediately interpreted (by Purger of course) as a sign of imminent give up on ASL because Etihad would be so much overwhelmed with loss-making Alitalia and AirBerlin, they wouldn not even look at ASL anymore.
If nothing else, Alitalia was often used as a key argument that ASL will never ever go transatlantic because Etihad will funnel everything through FCO.
And now that all these expert predictions turned out to be nonsense, we can only sit and wait to see what will come next. Because the doom&gloom tam neither can admit they were wrong nor they can stop bashing (hate is a vicious motivator).
Not sure I understand why people get some things so seriously and as if their own lives directly depend on whether an exYU airline will be a success or not. But it is the mentality of this region.
Can someone elaborate on how smart it is not to fly 6-7 from BEG? Would it be better if they scheduled at least one of those 5 flights over the weekend?
1. Bouncing back from what? JU has a double-digit growth of pax in 2015 and the LF/yields grow too.
2. No one said anything about bouncing back. We were commenting this nonsense about "Etihad giving up on ASL".
As for reality check, you may wish to recommend it to those who scream out of happiness each time JU decides to optimize its network and capacity. ALL FLIGHTS DELAYED, ALL FLIGHTS DELAYED, MAJOR NETWORK CUTS, MAJOR NETWORK CUTS, ETIHAD GIVING UP, ETIHAD GIVING UP...
Yeah, reality...
In same time Air Serbia cuts 13% of their flights, close some routes, did not open any new one, plan for flights to USA was cut from 2 planes to one, and three routes to just one with 5 flights per week. Dumping is finished, ticket prices are high. Belgrade airport postponed to an undefined period terminal reconstruction and expansion.
So there is no more money for dumping and supporting of unreal frequencies, connection is very bad. And you are still so optimistic?
Ponekad sam jedini ja ovde branio ASL i niko od vas nije smeo , pa ne znam cemu sad nerviranje.
INN-NS
Let me repeat once more:
Air Serbia has a double-digit growth of passengers in 2015.
Keywords: double.digit.passenger.growth
In addition, Air Serbia's LF and yields are also on the increase in 2015.
Keywords: LF.yields.increase
Now back to your question: no, I am not so optimistic. I am curious in how the entire project will go. I watch it, I taste it here and there, I read about it, you know, general curiosity without too much emotions.
What I also don't have is this obsessive desire that Air Serbia fails. And I am happy I don't because this obsession apparently twists a person's senses and cognitive abilities so badly, it turns them into blind screamers of pure hate. A bit scary and it seems to have no cure.
1. Push for the rules to be enforced which would mean that both Turkish And Pegasus would have to operate up to 7 weekly flights.
2. Be smart and up its presence in Turkey. In addition to the afternoon flight, JU could also launch daily night flights AND it wouldn't be such a bad idea to use Pegasus' frequencies to launch 4/5 weekly flights to Ankara.
Mind you, the ASA also states that TK is not allowed to send anything bigger than a B738 to BEG, A321 included. Given that the B739 and the A321 are regular visitors, one can see how flexible both sides are when it comes to the rules.
It's funny how the initial slots JU got in IST were so much better than the current ones, in terms of connections.
1. I did say that dumping will stop. Didn't have idea it will stop so early. But here is the fact. Prices are much higher today than it was 2 months ago (most of the routes even 100% more) and there was big cut in frequencies and routes. So, yes, I was right. Was dumping stupid idea? NO! Was stupid to stop it in winter 2015? Of course not! But one more time I told there would be more money for dumping and that it will be on till winter 2016 to support JFK route.
2. „Even when Etihad added new airlines to their alliance (Alitalia) it was immediately interpreted (by Purger of course) as a sign of imminent give up on ASL because Etihad would be so much overwhelmed with loss-making Alitalia and AirBerlin, they wouldn not even look at ASL anymore.“ Not true. I said it is not good news for Air Serbia and still thing it is not. I also said that Etihad will be much more concentrating on Alitalia than Air Serbia now, and it is! That is true. But to say they will run out of Air Serbia or that it will immediately give up, that is not true at all. Not even close to my opinion. Plan of 3 routes (JFK, ORD and YYZ ) which is reduced to just JFK is for sure part of that new reality.
INN-NS
However, if you really need it I am sure the Directorate can provide you with a scanned copy. ASAs should be accessible to the public under that law whose name i can't remember now.
The airline will add seven new routes: Berlin, Bucharest, Dublin, Corfu, Malta, Bologna and Mykonos.
This will bring the total number of destinations to 19.
They will also increase ATH-SKG from 6 to 7 daily, Rhodes from daily to double daily and Santorini from two to three daily.
They expect to carry 3.4 million passengers per year in ATH.
I wonder if at some point we might see them fly into ex-YU. My guess is that the first route would be ATH-DBV.
1. It is perfectly normal that Etihad will put more focus on Alitalia than on Air Serbia. No one with half a brain would deny it. But it does not necessarily mean that Etihad would CHANGE their plans for Air Serbia because of Alitalia. There is a big difference there. At the time of the ASL deal Etihad was already hunting on Alitalia and their strategy for ASL for sure had taken the Alitalia deal into account.
2. There was never any official long haul plan for JFK, ORD and YYZ together. Those were mere speculations and I see no base for a claim that it was some ready plan that had to be abandoned because of the Alitalia deal.
3. Dumping has to stop at some point because each airline wants to turn profitable. But when ASL stops dumping you see it as a clear sign that funds have drained. And what if they simply concluded there was no need to dump further and they can now increase yield on the existing routes and save the dumping funds for some new routes?
That is the source of the problem here. Even you would not even try to observe ASL's strategy from any positive aspect - whatever happens you simply attribute it to the worst case scenario coming to life. You don't even mention other possibilities - you only recognize the existence of the worst possible option. And if an experienced consultant such as yourself sees things that way then what can we expect from fans and haters?
OK I will try. So there is in fact a new bilateral between Serbia and Turkey (replacing the SFRJ one from the 50s) where even the type of aircraft is specified? Is this correct?
I don't think it's a new one, they just revised the old one from 1953. That's when the a/c restriction was added which does not include cargo and charter flights. I don't recall there being any restrictions for JU so it would be funny if they send their A332 from time to time. :D
Serbia and Turkey should just sign an open skies agreement and get it over with.
Anon 13.34
Thank you for the loads. I am not surprised given the poor connectivity from some places such as Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels... if you go on Air Serbia's website and you try to book a CDG-BEG-IST flight it gives you one of those overnight connections. I highly doubt anyone flies like that given the countless other options between the two cities.
That's why I said that a night flight to IST is an absolute must. In such a way your entire network could connect onto your IST flight. The flight could depart at 00.30 and return at 05.15.
It will be hopefully January or February 2016.
Interesting thing is, although Turkish passengers would benefit from more options and would be able to avoid ripoff fares by TK if they could easily transfer via BEG or another hub, you will not find a single media outlet in Turkey that would trash and bash TK for that. And this is not because somebody would ban them from trashing and bashing TK but simply because they do not feel like that. They see the state protection of TK a good thing overall and they would not demand the airline to fail and shut down so that they can have more LCCs and foreign carriers in IST.
Because even in Turkey not everything is cheap politics. But in Serbia it is.
Don't forget that Turkish Airlines invest a lot of money in marketing which has become rather aggressive in recent years. If anything, they have created a brand out of TK and the overall flying experience is not bad. Now, the situation at IST is a different story.
You're perfectly right. If i was on the Turkish side i would act in the exact same way. The thing is people in Serbia have lost their collective consciousness of the society as a whole, Serbia is ridden with individualism and thereby everyone advocates and acts in a way what's seen as its purely personal and short-term benefit what's on the long-term highly detrimental.
As in what concerns TK, many Turks are aware they're ripping them off (TK is quite hated in Turkey) but they're simply not aware of any other options to fly anywhere outside the Turkish carriers. Turks are very conservative when it comes to travel choices and they don't travel much, especially given the fact that a large percentage even doesn't' speak English thereby they'll either take a direct flight or a Turkish carrier no matter the price. I think it would be a significant boost to the route if Air Serbia advertised in Turkey as a Turkish-speaking carrier by employing a dozen of FA's for that route, that would make a huge difference and the word would spread fast. I mean, if they could replace the Serbian alphabet in the in-flight magazine in order to become more appealing to "regional customers" (half of whom don't understand a word be it in Cyrillic or Latin) then they could make a real and this time intelligent effort for a market of 80 million people. I do not have the exact numbers but it would be interesting to see the BEG-IST LF in both directions, whether the way there offering more connections on one-way tickets offers any better loads.
PS: The idea about locally speaking FA's could be one of the thing Air Serbia could set itself aside from others carriers in many markets.
http://www.exyuaviation.com/2015/12/belgrade-decline-continues-into-second.html?showComment=1449568647214#c3513582880087675550
2. Well, lot of announcements by politicians were about those 3 routes. All the time. If we judge just by Kondić announcement, last one was that he is not sure about long-haul flights and that he never make any announcements on that topic (what is not exactly the true). As we all know that those JFK flights are political instructed one in this moment we have to ask why they were reduced. Unfortunately most of discussion here is subject of speculations and predictions, for sure we don't have documents or precise information from Etihad senior managers, but some of the speculations are product of analytics, reading of speculations of important analytics and possibility to understand what happened in air traffic today. For sure you can learn from previous experiences especially Etihad one. „Historia est magistra vitae“.
3. We agree dumping must stop at some point. But you can never read me saying that stopping dumping is sign of drained funds. I was just asking question that it is not logic that they stop dumping 8 months before starting JFK flights which has to be feeted, and that in combination with big reduction in winter time table one has to ask himself that this policy is strange. I cannot find example of so hard dumping stop (prices went up for 100 and more %) and in same time so big reduction (13%). For that policy you must have some not planed reasons.
And to say that I am always just with worst scenario is so far away from troth. I am the one who always point all possibilities. So, your comment is not product of my writing or interviews, but will to make me part of ASL hater population what is so not true. Let me just remind you of my last post on this blog:
I cannot believe what all of you say here. Most of discussion here is political, irrational and have nothing to do with air traffic. You become boring.
Here are the facts.
1. It is very good for Serbia to have this licence with or without future flights (and I did not have doubt that JFK flights will be materialised, not even 2 years ago).
2. It is questionable how those flights to JFK will be financed as there is no chance they will be profitable in near future (and trust me those 2 years planed unprofitability is more than unreal optimistic). (…) November results shows that new strategy of cutting routes and frequencies did not bring enough positive results. And in same time was having bad influence to potential customers and connectivity in BEG. All of those are not good for opening JFK flights. But let's hope that was just permanent measurement for Winter 2015/16 and that in April, enough in advance of opening JFK, that connectivity will come to last year level and it should be even better for support feeding JFK flights. (…)
huge congratulation to Serbia for this brave move, hope they will finance JFK flights next few years because if they stop now or in few years it will be catastrophic for company. And special congratulations to get licence because we all know what huge job that is and especially in light of MEB3 problems with USA and side problems JU and Serbia had because of that.
Is there going to be a privatisation or will the state build it with its own money?
A sto se tice Evropske flote uz 10 32A sa jos 4 32B.
A da bi se bilo i malo konkurentno ja bi dodao jos 3 A332 i porucio obavezno jos 6 A359 .
A moguce linije bi bile uz JFK , ADD, PEK, BKK i naravno YYZ dok ne dodju A359.
Verovatno ce se mnogo njih smejati ali ko ne rizikuje nista nece ni da ostvari, ali najlakse je reci ne isplati se.
INN-NS
And what about the diaspora in Chicago?
https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t31.0-8/10710351_10207735328759016_5336279432942454285_o.jpg
https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xat1/t31.0-8/12119901_10207706426516478_8602073685826237203_o.jpg
https://scontent-vie1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/t31.0-8/12079990_10207704311103594_7843946371271343708_o.jpg
"Srbiju će u martu 2016. godine posetiti 700 iranskih turista"
"ako se uspostavi avionska čarter linija između Teherana i Beograda, od juna do septembra u Srbiju dolaziti redovne grupe turista iz Irana. "
izvor: http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Drustvo/614032/Srbija-ce-biti-glavna-turisticka-destinacija-turistima-iz-IRANA
INN-NS
1) Standard ti je blago rečeno nerealan i moraš malo da smanjiš očekivanja kako bi izbegavao česta razočarenja, kako na ovom blogu tako i u životu.
2) A vi koji samo znate da pljujete i šatro kritikujete bi mogli da nadjete hobi ili ponekad ne razmišljate o svemu kao da je apokalipsa i kao da je sve užasno pod maskom nekog kriticizma.
Ако се икада реализују ови летови надам се да ће бити у сарадњи са Маханом. Колико год ми Иран ер био драг, имам осећај да неће још дуго опстати. На крају држава ће морати или да их приватизује или да их угаси.
Оно што је занимљиво је да је ове године по први пут Иран био присутан на сајму туризма овде у Београду.
INN-NS
Hapek
Kao sto sam vec rekao najlakse je reci ne isplati se i nista raditi.
INN-NS
Tvrditi da je ne mislim tako znači ili da niste čitali moje postove i komentare, ili da jeste a onda zlonamjerno izvrčete istinu. Jer to što ste napisali ne samo da nije istina nego je potpuna laž.
Pa gdje bi to letjelo majke ti? I odakle, ili bi još dvije milijarde EUR potrošio na širenje terminala da ti silni širokotupci imaju odakle letjeti?
http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/jet-airways-makes-amsterdam-its-european-gateway/article7987876.ece
He does sometimes criticize ASL but not out of hate or other negative reasons, but out of an interest in civil aviation. Generally his strongest criticism if reserved for Croatia Airlines.
Also, many tour groups (such as Serbian dance groups in the USA / Canada) like purchasing tickets much early, I know one that has already bought tickets for their group, sadly with Alitalia because the offer was good and there are no tickets being sold from Air Serbia.
Personally, my family got our tickets last year on January 3 and the prices were the cheapest, I checked afterwards too to make sure, in February March etc. So many people have begun booking, and after new years especially people will here in the USA, so I am afraid Air Serbia may miss out on many guests, such as my family and dance group which will be looking to purchase tickets by New Years..
Who knows, maybe we will be surprised this month with prices / tickets being sold ;) Only hope this doesn't end up like "Air Plus" from Chicago in 2012 where we were sitting at the gate for 3 hours waiting to board which we never could.
INN-NS
No, to ne znači da je sve u ASL-u odmah dobro ili da valja. Upravo suprotno. I baš zbog toga bilo kakvu kritiku treba doživjeti konstruktivno i pozitivno, za dobrobit kompanije. Jednostavno ne razumijem osobe koje to doživljavaju drugačije.