Sarajevo Airport says talks with budget airline Wizz Air over future operations are still at an early stage and that no definite agreement concerning potential flights has been made yet, following media reports of an imminent deal. The comments come just a few weeks after the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina said Wizz Air will expand services from the country with the launch of "several European destinations" from Sarajevo this year. However, the airport notes it will "analyse all options" when it comes to future cooperation with the budget airline, adding that no routes have been negotiated thus far. "When it comes to launching operations to Sarajevo, it is important to note that each carrier conducts its own market research and studies the commercial viability of introducing a new route. Other than Wizz Air, we are currently not involved in talks with any other low cost airline".
Wizz Air itself remains coy on its future plans for Sarajevo. Last week, when questioned on the matter, the airline said, "We speak with a number of airports at all times about possible future growth as we will continue growing with those who offer low costs". However, in April, Wizz Air's Head of Airport Development, Jozsef Ujhely, visited Sarajevo and said, "After Tuzla, which continues to be our main base in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we intend on establishing flights from Sarajevo, which we consider a very important destination. Furthermore, we are also interested in investing in Sarajevo Airport". Wizz Air held drawn-out negotiations with Sarajevo Airport's former management but failed to reach an agreement over fees. "It is true that the former management held talks with the Hungarian carrier, but that process was never completed. In the future, all potential negotiations regarding the arrival of this company will start from the beginning and in case both sides reach a deal over all parts of the agreement, it will be signed", a Sarajevo Airport spokesperson said.
Sarajevo Airport saw its passenger numbers decline sharply in June. The airport handled 66.429 passengers, a decrease of 11.3% compared to the same month last year. The number of aircraft movements stood at 992. Travel was slightly affected by the month of Ramadan, with Air Arabia temporarily suspending all flights between Sharjah and Sarajevo in June. Services on the route resumed last week. Furthermore, unlike last year, Swiss International Air Lines no longer maintains flights between Geneva and the Bosnian capital. Services were suspended in April. So far this year, Sarajevo Airport has welcomed 357.465 travellers through its doors, an increase of 1.6% on 2015.
| Month | PAX | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|
| JAN | 41.208 | ▼ 5.7 |
| FEB | 42.567 | ▲ 6.7 |
| MAR | 53.438 | ▲ 6.3 |
| APR | 68.085 | ▲ 8.0 |
| MAY | 85.738 | ▲ 7.0 |
| JUN | 66.429 | ▼ 11.3 |
Comments
Funny how much people around here trust media without checking facts for themselves.
Do you think cheap tickets are in the interest of passengers?
Do you think support should be given to airlines willing to risk operating to a historically unproven market such as the inland Balkans?
Do you know LCCs are already not only operating, but having based aircraft at main airports all across Western Europe?
Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden
Paris
London
Hamburg
Berlin
there routes are probably the potential that could work for Sarajevo
And I think WizzAir will move the flights from Eindhoven and Dortmund to Sarajevo instead of Tuzla. Tuzla will be mainly for Scandinavian region.
Btw does anyone know why TradeAir operated BEG-MUC today?
Iskreno ne vidim takve letove po ostalim republikama bivše Jugoslavije. Zašto je to tako samo u Srbiji, a nije i u Crnoj Gori, Makedoniji, BiH, Kosovu, nije bilo tako ni u Slovniji i Hrvatskoj prije ulaska u EU. Stvarno čudan fenomen koji je zanimljiv i sa pozicije aero-prometa.
C3 370
Venice - Marco Polo (via Munich)
Private charter carrying guests to the wedding of Ana Ivanovic and Bastian Schweinsteiger.
Nesto sto jos nije dobro za tog aerodroma je mjesec "ramazan", dok sarajlije i dijaspora cekaju da prode citav mjesec dok krenu letiti konkurent Podgorica polako mozda prosica Sarajevo sto se tice broj putnika do kraja godine.
A mislim da oni koji vode aerodroma i pregovaraju sa kompanijama trebaju se boriti da se uvode letovi za Evropske metropole kao naprimjer Amsterdam i Frankfurt.
Da podsjetim, Sarajevo je jedini glavni grad u bivsoj Jugoslaviji koji nije spojen sa Frankfurtom, moras presjedati da bi isao u Frankfurt. Umjesto da se ganja Ankara, Sharjah, Kairo i Iran treba ganjati uporno Amsterdam i Frankfurt i malo pogledati susjede. Za kraj, Sarajevo puno gubi na to sto radi samo do 22 sati i sto se aerodrom nalazi tu gdje se nalazi.
Ako zele biti "svjetski aerodrom", mora se produziti radno vrijeme na 24 sata kao i skoro svi ako ne svi bas u regiji. Takoder treba gledati novu buducnu lokaciju za novi aerodrom jednu 15-20 km od Sarajeva jer ovako je blizo naselje i obican narod kojem smetaju avioni 24 sata.
They should work on attracting airlines that can offer the cheapest fares to the greatest number of destinations. Unfortunately those are usually not the legacy but lowcost carriers.
Seems like Air Serbia will be suspending WAW from November. There are no more direct flights in the system. They are selling WAW via their code-shares with LO and AB.
Do you know that LCCs can/will stop all their flights to a destination immediately, if the subsidies/marketing supports are cut?
Do you know that LCCs at first try the capture the majority of the market, forcing the legacy carriers leave, and then force the city and airport authorities increase the subsidies/support they receive, even threat them with cutting operations?
LCCs are good for cities without any visitors, for hopeless cities. And for major airports. Not for the ones in between.
And why do they not trying Belgrade or Zagreb.
One strange thing is that neither IST not ATH will have night flights which is problematic as they won't be able to offer (competitive) connections to JFK.
3x the week on those days FlyDubai is not flying.
At least daily flights to Dubai/Sharjah is a must for every European city with more than a million inhabitants.
Aegean's great increase in capacity on its BEG flights reduced JU's loadfactor and average ticket price.
Two flights a day with A320s is overcapacity for that route.
1. WE airports have volume-based charges for all airlines and incentives for new destinations. No government intervention is necessary due to proper free market conditions. Contracts are what rules the day, list prices are not paid by any regular airline with based aircraft.
2. A ridiculous claim unsupported by any evidence. If this were the case there would have been plenty.
3. Same as 2.
Are these the horror stories you tell insecure ministers around the camp fire? =)))
https://www.facebook.com/events/1028333847263753/
This probably dosen't mean anything, right?
FZ doesn't do too well to BEG, compared to EY, JU and QR all flying from BEG to the Gulf. This will be worse if the word is true that FZ will transfer over to DWC next year.
SHJ-SJJ has terrible loads, I don't think they will be back next summer. FZ as well to SJJ doesn't have great numbers, and flights now have a lot of empty seats. This is surprising as a lot of Gulf nationals vacation in BiH.
SHJ is a crappy airport. Driving through Sharjah is horrid, which gets worse in the peak traffic, to which it is faster to drive to Abu Dhabi than to Sharjah from Dubai.
Demand for BEG-DXB is there, but it needs the EK network. JU after all was flying up to 6 p/w to DXB while it had the SPA with EK, which had great loads. JU flying to DXB would do a lot better than AUH.
JU needs a DC9 replacement. It would be sad to see ATH drop back to daily. The night flight should at least operate on the days it connects to JFK.
LCA-BEG
BEG-DUS
DUS-JFK
Same way back. His price is €592. He is going next month. That's a steal!
Air Arabia already tried every odd place.
Why not try the easiest options.Fly to the biggest airport in the region that is Belgrade and then Zagreb.
Air Serbia for example does fly to New York and not Chicago as many hoped for.
Because numbers for NY are simply better.
Good for him but not much for Air Serbia.
DXB-SJJ is 12 x p/w. That doesn't automatically mean great loads. Last week on SJJ-DXB practically every pax had a row to themselves.
@ anonymous 11,55pm
Al Nahda and Al Qusais, is practically the same urban space, but that's it. Comparing DXB to SHJ is like comparing BEG to LHR. It doesn't work. What makes routes like AUH and DOH work is a lot of transit traffic, which SHJ doesn't have and DXB lost most of. Seeing how FZ doesn't do the best to BEG out of all the Gulf carriers goes to show that G9 doesn't have a chance in either BEG or ZAG.
It's a shame because they explicitly wanted to fly on JU to JFK. I guess fares were that expensive because Serbs from New York are returning home at that time.