 |
| Qatar Airways upgrades Belgrade service |
Qatar Airways will launch nonstop flights between Doha and Belgrade on March 15, 2016. The service currently operates with an intermediate stop in Sofia. Flights will run four times per week, each Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and will be maintained with an Airbus A320 aircraft. Qatar Airways initially launched flights from Doha to Belgrade in late 2012 with a stop in Ankara. However, the airline was not issued fifth freedom rights to sell tickets between the Turkish and Serbian capitals. This March, the Qatari carrier moved its stopover to Sofia and boosted services to daily flights. Despite applying for fifth freedom traffic rights between Sofia and Belgrade, the airline was denied permission by Serbian authorities to sell tickets between the two cities.
Belgrade becomes the second destination in the former Yugoslavia to be served nonstop from Doha following Zagreb. Similarly, this year, Qatar Airways introduced five weekly nonstop flights to the Croatian capital, dropping its Budapest stop on the route, despite the airline holding fifth freedom traffic rights between the Hungarian capital and Zagreb. The carrier's nonstop service from Belgrade has been timed so as to offer passengers connections to other points in the Middle East, as well as Asia and Australia. Qatar is now better positioned to compete against the likes of Etihad Airways and Flydubai, which also serve the Serbian capital with a similar passenger structure. This June, Serbia abolished visa requirements for Qatari passport holders, becoming only the third European country to do so, after Bosnia and Herzegovina and Belarus, which is expected to boost point to point travel.
Qatar Airways is likely to expand services to the former Yugoslavia next year with both Sarajevo and Skopje being considered as potential destinations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina has confirmed that Qatar Airways plans to launch flights to Sarajevo and that final preparations are underway before the carrier officially announces the new service. Last month, the Senior Vice President for Aero Political, Industry, Regulatory Affairs & Alliances at Qatar Airways said his airline hopes to establish flights from Doha to Skopje next year as well. Since both its routes to Zagreb and Belgrade were initially served via another point in Europe, it is highly likely that Sarajevo and Skopje will also operate with an intermediate stop or that the two cities themselves will be linked by the Qatari carrier.
Thank God! This was long overdue... finally they will become more competitive when facing Turkish Airlines, Etihad and flydubai.
ReplyDeleteGreat news. Now they can actually compete without the top
ReplyDelete*stop
DeleteHow are the loads on flights between Doha and Belgrade?
ReplyDeleteTheir loads are improving. When they launched flights, they had between 10 and 12 passengers.
DeleteBy summer 2013, numbers grew to an average 30 to 35 per flight.
Last summer, their loads became more decent when they carried, on average, roughly between 60 and 70 passengers.
That day when their A332 arrived to Belgrade, they had over 100 passengers in and out of BEG. I am sure that these direct flights will make them even more popular.
When it comes to Etihad, I am sure that they are not upgauging BEG due to a lack of aircraft as their flight is chronically full.
Current schedule:
DeleteDOH-BEG 07.55-13.20
BEG-DOH 14.25-23.00
New schedule:
DOH-BEG 06.55-11.20
BEG-DOH 12.20-18.05
Seems like a lot of cities will lose a fast connection as the 19.00-22.00 bank is much weaker than the midnight one. It's also a shame that connections to China, Iran... are so much longer now.
Qatar also has a Serbian version of the website.
DeleteLooking at new arrival times to DOH, it is easy to see that they fit perfectly to MEL/SYD/ADL (from summer schedule) and also connect excellent to Middle East, SIN, BKK and India (plus CMB I think). So, I don't think that Iran and China is what is planned to fill this new capacity, but namely Australia and South East Asia. Which is probably also bread and butter fro EY, so it is going to be quite interesting from now on....
DeleteYou are right, my bad. I only checked tonight's departures to get the overall picture.
DeleteIf we are to look at the top selling markets out of BEG via AUH then we can see that Qatar will create quite some competition.
(BEG) DOH-SYD
arr. 18.05 // dep. 20.40
DOH-MEL
arr. 18.05 // dep. 20.40
DOH-BKK
arr. 18.05 // dep. 20.55
SYD-DOH
arr. 04.50 // dep. 06.55
MEL-DOH
arr. 05.00 // dep. 06.55
BKK-DOH
arr. 04.55 // dep. 06.55
However with revised schedule, travellers will be presented with a nice alternative to IST which has become overcrowded.
Yup, in spite of longer connection time on the outbound to China and Japan, bigger plus is excellent connectivity to Australasia.
DeleteTrue that but I just looked at the trip via DOH to SYD and it is only 15 minutes longer than on EY via AUH, 21 hours vs. 21 hours and 15 minutes. I guess now it all boils down to the price and the overall experience, both on the ground and in the air.
DeleteThe JU option to SYD takes a bit longer, 22 hours and 35 minutes, and from what I can see it is in combination with Virgin Australia.
Since SYD is new destination for QR, I can imagine they will be very aggressive price wise. Then again, overall capacity is on EY side. Basically, it will be interesting to see if demand from/to Australia is big enough for both operators to base it as probably core of their business in BEG (probably with the addition of Thailand where QR might have upper hand price wise over more seats from DOH),
DeleteI agree and since neither EY nor QR really care about profits I am sure they will trash their yields just to preserve their marketshare. What will be interesting to see is how Dubai responds to all this.
DeleteEmirates control roughly 65% of the total market between Belgrade and Australia. I am sure they won't just give it up. That said, I don't think they will launch flights with their own metal but maybe they will force flydubai to become a bit more aggressive here. It was interesting how they introduced free meals on their flights to Belgrade and the airline constantly has some sort of promotions.
One advantage flydubai has is that unlike AUH or DOH, DXB has a lot of p2p passengers which helps.
FZ definitely has a help in having P2P demand which others realistically don't. Hard to be a prophet, and if the market size stays the same, it will be interesting to see load factor developments in 12 months time. Basically to see from which carrier QR managed to poach traffic from. Or do you think more seats and option at this point can generate new demand? I am writing this from Zagreb, am not really in the know of local market and incoming market to BEG.
Delete^^^
DeleteEK has been for quite a few years looking into the possibility in opening BEG. Originally it was to be a stop over enroute to VCE as at the time VCE was not performing well, but traffic picked up and the BEG stop was not needed. EK has been doing some small investment in BEG with offering its premium customers chauffeur drive, and EK SkyCargo has been active in BEG with the B744's, which again is a good sign to boost revenue. Tourism from UAE picked up with the abolishment of visas for Emiratis.
A good percentage of O&D pax is non-rev, and most travel from AUH. Last week, JU801 went full to BEG, 11 confirmed staff and 7 stand by, leaving a few empty seats. FZ does ok on the route, but I think EK mental would boost loads as EK don't fly routes 3 p/w and have the A332 capacity to do so, making travelling from DXB more attractive, not to mention the superior quality of travel via DXB compared to DOH and AUH.
IMO, I think EY will drop BEG and JU will upgauge to the A330. EY crew is expected to familiarize JU crew with the A330, just as with the A319. It will be an upgrade to product, a small rise in seat capacity, and could work well to keep its position in the market. After all, AUH is the worst of the ME3 hubs.
As for QR, they seem to be doing better. It seems they might be sending their A330 to BEG again around new years.
I don't believe EK will open soon any line to the Ex-Yu or the rest of the Balkans (exluding Turkey and Greece). We just don't have the capacity for that.
DeleteIt will def be interesting to follow the situation of the three Middle Eastern carriers in the region. In Sarajevo FZ is doing great from what I hear, and QR is doing great as well. How are loads on FZ in Zagreb?
DeleteIn terms of EY/JU, just as JATBEGMEL said I also see one carrier dropping the AUH route and the route being upgraded to a A330. I said that a while back, although I am pretty sure EY would get a upper hand if it were the company to do so. EY flights always had good loads and timing of the flights is nicely scheduled.
AnonymousDecember 6, 2015 at 11:18 AM
DeleteI think Qatar's direct flights will certainly create some new passengers, that is those who are price sensitive and who might be attracted by lower fares. However, I think that there are only so many passengers here in Serbia and that we are nearing our maximum capacity. One advantage QR has is that they have a great sales team which has been selling quite a few BEG seats to Asians visiting the region. In other words they are filling their flights on both ends.
I think that these non-stop flights are primarily great because they will finally make DOH and QR competitive.
As far as AUH goes, I just don't see the route being reduced to a daily flight while being upgauged to an A332.
First of all, by sending it down south you will disrupt your JFK schedule forcing you to reduce the frequencies which will make you much less competitive. Especially since JFK will most likely get a split schedule.
Second of all, you don't want your only widebody aircraft to be on a tight schedule. It's a recipe for a disaster.
Third, both AUH flights are perfectly timed to offer connecting flight. The evening flight to AUH sees quite a few transit passengers from places such as Copenhagen, Prague... who travel to Asia with two stops.
By having double daily flights to AUH, EY and JU offer much greater flexibility to their potential passengers. By reducing it to daily they would be slightly more competitive than QR. This is their greatest advantage because in terms of onboard product neither one beats QR, especially not JU.
@ nemjee
DeleteI never thought of the split scheduling for JFK, interesting comment.
As for the JU evening flight, last season it was a disaster with extremely low loads, that is 25-40 pax. At the moment the flights are filling better, however roughly 30 seats are left empty. EY loads are much better, the midday departure from BEG is always full, however EY doesn't have the capacity to upgauge it to a large ac. Instead they send their A319's with their most outdated product on the route. There is however demand for 1 A330. JU product on the A319 is the worst coming to the Gulf, when compared to QR, EY and FZ. Where JU is best is catering and staff, however the crew in EY is great as well.
Rumour is that BKK will be added to the JU network and I think itll go via AUH, along side a second A330 to join the fleet.
JU is doing quite ok when it comes to AUH. In September and the first half of October flights were completely full. Etihad on the other hand has been 100% full since day one. They should just give those two A319s to JU and have them operate both daily flights. It would be the best solution. :D
DeleteAs for BEG-AUH-BKK it would make sense in that case as I don't think BEG-BKK would have ever materialized on its own.
Now when it comes to JU's cabin, I am starting to worry that they chose the wrong seats. I just flew on Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines and their A319s to/from BEG were in high density configuration but they felt more comfortable than JU. Same with Wizz Air. I returned from LCA on one of their newer A320s and it was a rather comfortable flight, something I can't say for the flight BEG-LCA which was operated by an older A320.
For those interested, LCA-BEG on W6 was roughly 60% full today.
DeleteRecaro seats are very comfortable.
DeleteI think that W6 has now cornered the LCA-BEG market and JU will find it very difficult to get back in.
Maybe but how big is the Cyprus market. How many passengers a year does Larnaka have?
Delete@ nemjee
Deleteeven last year, September was great for JU CLF to AUH, all up to mid October when the load started to slowly fall, from I think mid November onwards it was disaster loads. I travel very often between Serbia and the UAE and mostly on JU. Even this year in May on one of my flights the load was around 30 pax.
As for the seats, I think the seats are ok. However, Ive had many empty flights on JU. I did 1 flight from ATH on the A320 and found it ok. The A319 cabin for AUH is bearable, first world problems I guess :D but it is one looooong flight if you don't sleep. I think the amenities JU offers and the high dense layout makes the pitch feel smaller than it is. Maybe I'm wrong.
The 2 A319's in EY (A6-EID, E) are the oldest EY product and said to be leaving the fleet, but I guess they have a bad shortage of ac. BEG should be at least an A320, especially in the summer months where it was always overbooked. There was a rumour that the 2 ac would come to JU but that was a year ago.
JU can return to Larnaca but only for connecting passengers. With that schedule they will not get any p2p passengers. Now, what they can do is to introduce a one weekly flight at a decent time but to also introduce one way fares so that they can compete more effectively with Wizz Air. Even if someone flies to LCA on W6 he can still return on JU. That's one passenger stolen from them... this could work especially during the winter months when W6 has a single weekly flight.
DeleteAs for Larnaca, it welcomed 5.2 million passengers last year. Paphos had around 2.5 million and out of these 7.5 million passengers, 2.5 were tourists out of which 65% had a package holiday.
So the market is there but after Cyprus Airways went belly up Star Alliance moved in rather aggressively. Air Serbia's mistake in Larnaca was that it didn't offer any UK or Romanian flights. Wizz Air just announced Iasi-Larnaca, its 9th destination out of LCA. Every time I flew on W6 there were quite a few Romanians from Timisoara, they even organize minibus rides to BEG.
Cyprus is currently overflowing with Russian tourists who moved there from Egypt and Turkey. Everyday Orenair operates three flights to Larnaca with their B772, Ural also stepped in and so did Nordwind with their B763s. I am sure LCA will handle well over 5.5 million passengers this year.
JATBEGMEL
It could be that it was just me but the A319s were really comfortable, then again both flights were short- VIE-BEG was only 51 minutes long!
But now that I think of it, if they do go ahead and introduce a second A332 for flights to BKK via AUH... does that mean that BEG-AUH with the A332 will operate only three times per week while the other days it will be an A319?
I know many will call me crazy but I think that JU should aim for ADD in stead of BKK. Like I already wrote once before, Serbia exports roughly 1 billion worth of goods to Ethiopia and there is quite a few passengers travelling between the two countries. They could also offer connections to places such as Copenhagen, Stockholm, Rome and Germany... which are all places with a considerable Ethiopian diaspora. Not to mention all the cargo they could carry. But this will never happen, so... more of the others. Especially now when Ethiopia is seeing unprecedented economic growth and when for the first time they are getting a middle class that can afford to travel abroad.
What kind of economic ties does Serbia have with Ethiopia? What is exported?
DeleteA lot of things. From what I remember there are tires, spare parts for cars and trucks, cash registers...
DeleteAlso related to QR, those in the know say that Zagreb is going to see frequency increase, something like from daily to 10 weekly flights. Overall seems like a strong push for QR in ex YU if that happens as well!
ReplyDeleteStill, just a rumor, not really official, at least not yet, but sources at the airport say it is done deal....
DeleteQatar za Zagreb leti 7 puta tjedno direktno a ne 5 puta kako piše u članku.
ReplyDeleteNe?
DeleteIf you actually read the article it says they started with 5 p/w when they introduced nonstop flights. Which they did.
DeleteKad Qatar otvori Sydney i Adelaide, flydubai u BEG i ZAG će se naći na tankom ledu...FZ je najavljivao 4/7 leta za BEG i ZAG od ove jeseni a na kraju od toga nema ništa. Mislim da će Qatar tu biti nr. 1
ReplyDeleteNe znam kakva je struktura putnika FZ u ZAG, ali ako je dobar dio njih iz Australije (točnije SYD/ADL), biti će potencijalno prilično pogođeni. Da ne govorim ako QR ode na 10 tjedno što je očito izgledno, onda se na dodatnom udaru nalazi i TK zbog većeg broja sjedala koja će puniti druge destinacije (kako TK ionako ne leti Australiju).
DeleteBut as far as I see BEG is losing 3 frequencies. Now the flights will be only on day - 2,3,5 & 7 or I'm mistaking?
ReplyDeleteIt is a significant gain in capacity because the majority of seats on these flights were occupied by passengers to/from Sofia.
DeleteDo you have information about the LF on this route?
DeleteAdmin:
ReplyDeleteI so looooooooove the vintage photo with the kid boarding the plane
Na svakom letu po 30 putnika.
ReplyDeleteRumour has it that JU will take on A6-EYC.
ReplyDeleteDelivered to 9W as VT-JWJ in Dec 2007, it currently operates for EY as A6-EYC and recently doing AUH-JNB rotations. Aircraft seems to be fitted with wifi.
source?
Deleteno source. rumour is a rumour, not a confirmation. small talk is on Serbian ssc forum.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDa dolazi od 9W sa vec instaliranim WI-FI ali koliko sam ja cuo je mladji od 2007 i da dolaze cak vise od 1 .
DeleteINN-NS
INN, uvek nas"obradujes" proverenim informacijama.. Tek kada ASL bude najavio drugu liniju krenuce u nabavku drugog A332. Za 5 x W, NYC, jedan je sasvim dovoljan.
Delete"Za 5 x W, NYC, jedan je sasvim dovoljan."
DeleteIf the aircraft goes tech then what? Will ASL have to beg for EY to send a replacement. It would be logical to have at least 2 planes even thought they will probably start with 1.
@4:52 Za samo jednu liniju, 5 xW, jedan avion je sasvim dovoljan. Dva dana u nedelji za odrzavanje je optimalno. U slucaju ispada, putnici se upucuju na AZ ili AB.. nema tu problema.. Drugi avion za samo jednu liniju bi bilo cisto bacanje novca.
DeleteAko je zaista bas taj avion onda on nece skoro stici u Er Srbiju jer jos uvek leti za Etihad. Dok se on prefarba i sredi kabina trebace vremena.
DeleteDa, treba vremena, ali se svi radovi mogu zavrsiti za mesec dana a jun je jos daleko.
Delete'U slucaju ispada, putnici se upucuju na AZ ili AB..'
DeleteAnd you think that you can just route 200+ passengers via those two airlines? How will you get all of them to FCO and TXL/DUS? Not to mention to JFK.
By the way, Alitalia is performing wonderfully in Belgrade. For the past month, month and a half they always had 110+ passengers out of Belgrade.
Jos jedan nepismeni mulac koji bi da pise o aviJonima.
Delete@Nemjee.. aj da je neko drugi to pitao, nisam to ocekivao bas od tebe.. Vide li ti one tackice? Ako mislis da je Etihad bratsvu problem da "prebaci" 200+ putnika iz NYC, onda mislim stvarnooo...
Delete@6:48 Vidim, znalac si stari.. takvih nam je puna zemlja..
DeleteAnonymousDecember 6, 2015 at 8:03 PM
DeleteМислим да се нисмо разумели. Ја нисам ни причао о Етихаду. Ја сам само хтео да кажем да ми се чини мало нереално да неки људи очекују да у случају отказивања лета за Њујорк, Ер Берлин или Алиталија могу да преузму све путнике. Овде причамо о 200, 250 путника. Како ћеш их све пребацити до Немачке или Италије? Чисто сумњам да ће имати 250 слободних места на летовима за DUS, FCO, TXL... а онда још са тих аеродрома да Ер Берлин и Алиталија имају довољно слободних места да превезу ове путнике до Америке. Не знам. Мислим да је смешно отпочињати прекоокеанске летове са једним А332.
I agree with Nemjee on this one since I dont know a single serious company which does across pond flights with a single long haul a/c (possibly charter airlines only)
DeleteNemjee, sve je stvar novca, kada već MORA da se leti, bira se najjeftinije i najsigurnije rešenje. Naravno da su dva aviona bolja od jednog ali dva aviona su duplo veci trosak... Činjenica je da bi oni sa tim jednim avionom mogli da lete i 6xW a lete 5 puta i ostavljaju 48h za odrzavanje je dokaz da celoj prici pristupaju odgovorno. U slucaju da avion ispadne na kraci rok nece biti problema to ispeglati.. ASL nije sama, sto se ovde cesto zaboravlja.
DeleteЕее проблем је у томе што се мора...
DeleteTo je ovim glupanima vec vise puta objasnjavano, ali njima je lakse u dupe nego u glavu uterati. Posebno baznian YYZ. Beznadezni su. Plus za 200 jura nadoknade ce majci na sahranu da kasne, a ne sto idu da se zahebavaju po Tribeci. Jedini je problem ako ih ekipa sa aerodroma bude odrzavala ima da se kvari tri puta sedmicno.
DeleteI don't understand this whole discussion if the ac will go tech what will happen with pax etc. This has been talked about many times and it seems this conversation just goes in circles. Where is the limit? Lets throw in a scenario that the A330 crashes leaving JU no ac capable of doing JFK while we are at it. Checking the recent flight history of the ac shows it regularly doing AUH-JNB flights, that is that same single ac.
DeleteIn the extreme rare event the ac did go AOG, AZ and AB have many daily flights to JFK, whilst not all pax will be for BEG. If not enough capacity, there is always KL, AF, LH, BA, LX, OS, LO, SU, SK who would take on pax. It is not like it hasn't been done in other companies before. Ideal, no, but things happen. The biggest issue should be how JU goes about dealing with such situations, and it is making a good reputation of itself. Bigger yet is BEG management and their short term planning as a minimum which is nothing positive to talk on. LH left me stuck in SPU because of their strikes, needing to find alternative flights. OS did the same to me in DXB when they cancelled the flight yet sent me an e-mail that my flight is ready to check in.
JATBRGMEL +1
DeleteLepo sto poredis EYov let za JNB sa JU letom za JFK... babe i zabe.
Delete@ anonymous 10:00PM
Deleteobjasni zasto.
Zato sto nema logike da poredis dve aviokompanije koje su u potpuno razlicitim kategorijama.Da taj isti A332 rikne, EY bi ga samo zamenio drugim i kasnjenja verovatno ne bi bilo. Kada bi se JU A332 pokvario nastala bi havarija i igranka.
DeleteJATBEGMEL, ljudi poput @10:00 obicno napisu kratku besmislenu opasku ili uvredu, za diskusiju ili nesto smisleno sigurno nisu..
Delete@10:07 jel ti citas sta su ljudi gore pisali ili... U SVAKOJ kompaniji na svetu, ispad jednog aviona je traumatican, samo sto je velikim igracima relativno lakse da ga ispeglaju.. Aj jos jednom.. Krece se sa jednim avionom radi manjih troskova. Pauza od 48h nedeljno je potpuno dovoljna za odrzavanje aviona (pogotovo ako dodje ovaj gore spomenuti EY avioncic) ASL ce uvek imati veliku pomoc Etihad bratstva...
Delete@ anonymous 10:07PM
DeleteEY has a shortage of aircraft. This is why they have taken on quite a few aircraft from 9W, who has a surplus of widebodies and from where JU will most likely take its A330. JU even operated 2 routes for EY due to their shortage (AUH and MCT), AB flew their HKT flights, HM to HKG. Even for EK to replace an aircraft can take many hours.
+1 for JATBEGMEL, right you are. Single plane means AOG will be unpleasant but manageable. But... going 5 days in a row and than 2 weekend days off means if there is a very long delay (say, weather at JFK) on Monday, ripple effects of that delay may be felt next day because of tight schedule, so your next day will also be forced to arrive and depart later and you don't want that at JFK. Mon-Fri schedule also works better for business passengers than others, but it's not a showstopper.
DeleteThat A6-EYC registration does have GE CF6-80 engines unlike Etihad RR standard, so this might be the one. Plus US ambassador hinted at GE engines six months ago when he expressed hope that at least engines would be US made, if aircraft itself is not.
As for interior, it will likely be different from the current one. When ex yu aviation asked about new product for long haul, response included adjective "bespoke", so that's a hint right there.
@ Decko
DeleteWeather in JFK is mostly a problem in the winter months, so far JU announced 1 A330 for June 2016. 9W will likely be wanting to offload some more A330's as they will downsize their US operations, possibly opening room for JU to take more and to expand operations ie daily JFK, maybe YYZ, ORD, BKK, AUH.
As for the schedule, we will wait and see what they do. They could stick to 1 departure slot, or as nemjee mentioned it could be a split timings. Delays are made up or shortened inflight, extra fuel can be taken to fly faster...split schedule would eliminate the fear of a knock on effect in the event of delays, however it may not work for current connections, unless JU intend to take on more ac and boost frequencies. It all early to judge.
As for the interior, I just hope IFE will be available unlike on the A319's theyre using to AUH with the over priced wifi.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNajvaznije da se sve tudje hvali a sve svoje pljuje A3 se hvali ko da je EK ovde.
DeleteKo kaze da ce ostati samo na jednom A332 ali vazno je da su svi pametni od G Hogan-a i G Kondica.
INN-NS
INN
DeleteНема потребе за таквим речником када је дискусија цивилизована.
Let them first get DoT's approval...
DeleteOT: China Eastern od iduće godine 3/7 za Prag s A330-200
ReplyDeleteIncident na letu Frankfurt-Beograd
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vecernji.hr/svijet/incident-na-letu-frankfurt-beograd-putnici-svladali-jordanca-koji-je-zelio-uci-u-kokpit-1042798
joj nepismenih novinara pisu na srpskom.
DeleteOdlicne vesti za LYBE mozda bude onda dolazi cesce 332 ili 788
ReplyDelete..sigurno, za tih 20, 30.. putnika
DeleteKako lupas ti ludi moj prijatelju, naravno 2 puta nedeljno prsdvidzeno e da se leti sa 340-600 i 1 mesecno A380, kakav pacient si ti ....
DeleteFinally !
ReplyDeleteLong overdue .
They were not competitive against Etihad and Turkish.
I don't think that an extra hour in SOF was the problem...
DeleteYeah, it actually was.
DeleteTheir economy cabin looks nice
ReplyDeleteWhat will happen with SOF, will they go 4/w direct too?
ReplyDeleteSofia will be daily with a split schedule. Departures out of Doha at 06.55 and 14.00.
DeleteThanks. So there is more interest from SOF than from BEG?
DeleteHmm... I wouldn't say so. I think it has to do with the fact that SOF has less flights to the big airports in the Persian Gulf area. Besides Qatar all they have is flydubai with three weekly flights.
DeleteMind you, even TK operates 'only' two daily flights.
Nemjee don't forget Wizz flies from SFO to DWC three times per week.
DeleteBut overall yeah BEG has a lot more capacity to the Middle East.
I'm sure you meant SOF.
DeleteYeah
DeleteTrue, I forgot about Wizz Air which makes flydubai's life rather difficult there.
DeleteWizz and fly dubai aren't cometing for the same market share. Fly Dubai is getting the transfer passengers while Wizz is getting the O&D passengers. As far as I know both companies will boost their flights from SOF from next year.
DeleteOf course but at the same time Wizz Air is taking away quite a few p2p passengers away from flydubai. It's not like their sole purpose is to carry transfer passengers.
DeleteOT: WizzAir Expands Skopje Service from late-March 2016
ReplyDeleteby JL
Posted at 0700GMT 04DEC15
WizzAir in Spring 2016 is expanding operations at Macedonia, as it plans to add 3 new routes from Skopje from late-March 2016. Planned new service as follow.
eff 21MAR16 Skopje – Berlin Schoenefeld 2 weekly (4 weekly from 29MAR16)
eff 22MAR16 Skopje – Copenhagen 1 weekly (3 weekly from 27MAR16)
eff 28MAR16 Skopje – Bratislava 2 weekly
Bratislava and Copenhagen are the new destinations joining WizzAir network in 2016.
Source: http://airlineroute.net/2015/12/04/w6-skp-s16/
You are like 5 days late
Deletehttp://www.exyuaviation.com/2015/12/wizz-air-tipped-for-new-skopje-service.html