Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport saw its passenger numbers decline during the first quarter of the year primarily as a result of Air Serbia and its reduced operations, the airport's Q1 report shows. On the other hand, the busiest foreign carriers recovered following a year of declining figures.
According to Belgrade Airport, Air Serbia handled 431.067 passengers on flights to and from the city, down 6.7% compared to the same period last year. The airline's passenger share at the airport stood at 49.6% during the three-month period, down from 52% in 2015. During Q1, the Serbian carrier operated 8% fewer flights, the airport says. Air Serbia cancelled its operations to Budapest and Larnaca last October and reduced services to a number of destinations over the winter period, which ran until the end of March. The airline's CEO, Dane Kondić, has defended the decision saying in a previous interview, "Flying empty aircraft over the winter just to keep a schedule is crazy. So, last winter we had two years of experience behind us, meaning to say that we had two summers and two winters, and therefore we knew exactly where the pain points were in the network. As we have progressed on our journey, what has been critical has been focus on profitable operations. The prime goal was to take out capacity to therefore boost our load factors". He added, "We have had far more profitable operations - load factor increase of 4 - 5%, yield increases of about 9 - 10% and RASK (Revenue per Air Seat Kilometre) improvement of almost 20%. By any measure, I think it was a fairly smart, wise and good move".
According to Belgrade Airport, Air Serbia's busiest route was Zurich, which saw strong growth when compared to Q1 2015. The airline welcomed 42.471 passengers on the service, up 21.6% on last year. It was followed by flights to Paris, Podgorica, Amsterdam and Moscow. Despite the dip in numbers, Air Serbia continues to maintain its position as the busiest national carrier in the former Yugoslavia, ahead of Croatia Airlines, which welcomed 315.566 passengers, Adria Airways with 198.084 travellers, and Montenegro Airlines, which handled 84.667 passengers. Air Serbia's figures are expected to bounce back during the second quarter with the launch of five new routes, including its first transatlantic service, and increase in frequencies across the network.
Belgrade Airport's second busiest airline, Wizz Air, continued with its recovery, which began in the fourth quarter of 2015 following almost two years of declining numbers. The no frills carrier handled 87.531 travellers on flights to and from the Serbian capital during the first three months of the year, up 4.2%. The figure was achieved despite the airline operating only five flights more than last year. It's passenger share stood at 10%. Lufthansa's and Montenegro Airlines' numbers rose 2.1%, while Turkish Airlines' passenger figures increased 8.7%. Between January and April, Belgrade Airport saw 1.235.349 passengers use its services, a decrease of 2.7% compared to the same period last year. It recorded a net profit of four million euros, as well as revenue of 14.8 million euros during the first quarter of the year - its best to date.
Busiest carriers at Belgrade Airport Q1
| Airline | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Air Serbia | 431.067 | ▼ 6.7 |
| Wizz Air | 87.531 | ▲ 4.2 |
| Lufthansa | 58.124 | ▲ 2.1 |
| Montenegro Airlines | 49.766 | ▲ 2.1 |
| Turkish Airlines | 40.033 | ▲ 8.7 |
Comments
What's crazy is that their sales department is doing such a bad job at filling those seats in winter time. That's the real problem. They didn't simply reduce the schedule like other airlines do, they butchered it so badly that connectivity became pathetic.
Another indicator that things are bad is taht the regional additions are only added because of JFK, meaning that if there were no long-haul flights there would be no need for them. Quite sad that they can't fill a double daily Atr flight to SOF.
If we look at the numbers we can see that the number of weekly flights for different destinations was (Source: http://www.exyuaviation.com/search/label/Winter%202015%2F16 ):
Zurich 14 (2015) 13 (2016)
Paris 14 (2015) 13 (2016)
Podgorica 21 (2015) 21 (2016)
Amsterdam 10 (2015) 7 (2016)
Moscow 12 (2015) 7 (2016)
Number of operations in 1st quarter for each city was (2015 90 days, 2016 91 days):
Zurich 180 (2015) 169 (2016)
Paris 180 (2015) 169 (2016)
Podgorica 270 (2015) 273 (2016)
Amsterdam 129 (2015) 91 (2016)
Moscow 154 (2015) 91 (2016)
If we say that every flight to Zurich and Paris was with A320 (155 seats) and Amsterdam and Moscow A319 (155 seats) and Podgorica ATR-72 (66 seats) we will get available seats for each destination during that period:
Zurich 55.800 (2015) 52.390 (2016)
Paris 55.800 (2015) 52.390 (2016)
Podgorica 35.640 (2015) 36.036 (2016)
Amsterdam 33.024 (2015) 23.296 (2016)
Moscow 39.424 (2015) 23.296 (2016)
From the report we know that the passenger numbers for each destination were (source http://www.belex.rs/data/2016/05/00099020.pdf page 74):
Zurich 34.929 (2015) 42.471 (2016)
Paris 34.127 (2015) 31.976 (2016)
Podgorica 25.363 (2015) 24.790 (2016)
Amsterdam 19.855 (2015) 18.844 (2016)
Moscow 22.501 (2015) 18.632 (2016)
So dividing passenger number with number of seat will give us load factor for each destination:
Zurich 0.63 (2015) 0.81 (2016)
Paris 0.61 (2015) 0.61 (2016)
Podgorica 0.71 (2015) 0.69 (2016)
Amsterdam 0.60 (2015) 0.81 (2016)
Moscow 0.57 (2015) 0.80 (2016)
Great improvements for Zurich, Amsterdam and Moscow.
To get total load factor we need to calculate ASK (Available Seat Kilometers) by multiplying Available Seats with distance between the cities (Zurich 951, Paris 1415, Podgorica 286, Amsterdam 1408, Moscow 1717, source http://elevate.airserbia.com/Elevate_maj2016/index.html#101/z ) that is:
Zurich 53.065.800 (2015) 49.822.890 (2016)
Paris 78.975.000 (2015) 74.131.850 (2016)
Podgorica 10.193.040 (2015) 10.306.296 (2016)
Amsterdam 46.497.792 (2015) 32.800.768 (2016)
Moscow 67.691.088 (2015) 39.999.232 (2016)
We also need RSK (Revenue Seat Kilometers) that we get for each destination by multiplying ASK with load factor for each destination so that is:
Zurich 33.217.479 (2015) 40.389.921 (2016)
Paris 48.289.705 (2015) 45.246.040 (2016)
Podgorica 7.253.818 (2015) 7.089.940 (2016)
Amsterdam 27.955.840 (2015) 26.532.352 (2016)
Moscow 38.634.217 (2015) 31.991.144 (2016)
So for all destinations total ASK was:
256.404.640 (2015) 207.061.036 (2016)
And RSK was:
155.351.059 (2015) 151.249.397 (2016)
And load factor was RSK/ASK
0.61 (2015) 0.73 (2016)
So they reduced ASK 19% but RSK 3% which is impressive….
Revenue from domestic entities (Air Serbia and others which are registered locally): 2.394.000 dinars
Foreign companies: 41.508.000 dinars
So much about subsidies :)
AMS 99 flts.(12/320,81/319,6/733) plf 70,9%
SVO 106 flts. (19/320,87/319) plf 65,0%
CDG 173 flts. (31/320,142/319) plf 68,4%
TGD 234 flts. (9/319,26/733,199/AT7) plf 66,8%
ZRH 175 flts. (92/320,74/319,9/733) plf 83,6%.
In case demand rise, they should put bigger plane on route, because that brings more money. Bigger plane more money per seat.
Q1 / 2016 / 12.482
Q1 / 2015 / 11.672
Many thanks.
I hope that they will keep daily flights in winter time.
Maybe the government should extend the subsidies by another year?
Result: BEG is the only airport in the whole of Balkans that has declining passenger numbers.
Q1 - 2015 - 105
Q1 - 2016 - 108
Today Qatar flight from BEG to Doha with A321. Is it demand or aircraft availability? Any info on that?
Thanks :-)
So far the only route that could see it is MMX.
Are you saying that TK carriers only passengers who didn't have a direct flight to their final destination?!?!?
I suspect that business case rests on less quantifiable benefits which can easily be 'fixed' to arrive at desired rate of return.
my2cents
Horrible.
QR has done a remarkable job in the region and has shown that you have to have patience in a market. In the first year in BEG specifically they had like 20-30 pax on average.
62445 pax in 2015
Numbers are critical for airports and as the above post said, they are less important for airlines. What is critical for airlines, is passenger yield and that their RASK is greater than their CASK.
Passenger numbers contribute to this, but you can carry less passengers and make considerably more money by flying higher yielding passengers at the expense of low yielding passengers.
In Air Serbia's case, their winter schedule was all about breaking some connectivity for O&D flows, thereby not carrying low yielding transfer traffic and instead, focusing on growing and carrying more point to point traffic.
That's what their CEO said they did and i recall he said they grew both their yields and their RASK over the winter - in the end, losing a lot less money.
Winter is tough for all small ex-yu carriers - the seasonality is extremely pronounced and not one carrier has a flexible fleet where they can bring in fleet when they need it (ie. summer) and then get rid of aircraft in the winter, when they don't need so many.
They are better off parking a few aircraft over the winter or providing ACMI flying to airlines in the southern hemisphere. That is the only way to overcome the dramatic fall off in demand over the winter and at the same time, minimise costs
ATCO
Samo bi bilo odlicno uvesti IKA i jos neku destinaciju.
INN-NS
I can appreciate 'under the water' comment, as it has some basis in finance, referred as sunk cost. So let's start today, forget about all the subsidies of the past two years, take the same 5 years horizon and do the same analysis.
Does the business case stack up without 'extra' benefits ?
my2cents
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/water+under+the+bridge
please excuse me as 'water under the bridge' and 'under water' all apply to ASL pretty much.