Turkish Airlines plans to launch flights to its second destination in Bosnia and Herzegovina following several years of negotiations. Mostar Airport's General Manager, Marin Raspudić, says talks with the Turkish carrier have entered their final phase and flights from Istanbul are expected to commence next summer season. According to Mr Raspudić, the service will operate via Sarajevo to which Turkish Airlines maintains ten weekly flights. The Turkish Consulate in Mostar has given its support for the new route. "This airport has the capacity to handle Turkish Airlines aircraft. Therefore, there are no obstacles to broaden our cooperation and finally link Mostar with Istanbul", the Turkish Consul General in Mostar, Ayse Selcan Sinli, said. She added, "Mostar Airport, Turkish Airlines and the Consulate are all prepared to work on this matter".
Turkish Airlines is the only foreign carrier serving all capital cities of the former Yugoslavia. This year, the company introduced flights to Dubrovnik and boosted its services to Ljubljana. On the other hand, the airline reduced its operations to Sarajevo, Zagreb and Pristina amid lower demand caused by safety concerns in Turkey, as well as a failed coup attempt in the country earlier this year. Turkish Airlines is the largest by capacity and frequency at Sarajevo Airport, offering over 3.000 seats from the Bosnian capital each week. Mostar Airport's General Manager previously noted, “Our main objective is to see the return of those passengers who left us during the war and post-war period. They are now using Dubrovnik and Split for charters to Medjugorje and Sarajevo Airport for scheduled services”.
Mostar Airport handled 52.539 passengers during the first ten months of the year, a decrease of 27.9% compared to the same period in 2015, making it Bosnia and Herzegovina’s third busiest airport behind Sarajevo and Tuzla but ahead of Banja Luka. Mostar has struggled to attract scheduled services but sees a significant number of charters throughout the year, carrying religious pilgrims visiting the nearby Medjugorje sight. It handled a record 86.000 travellers in a single year prior to the breakup of the former Yugoslavia but has since been unable to surpass that figure. The airport expects to secure the arrival of a low cost carrier next year following talks with local authorities who are prepared to grant 255.600 euros in subsidies in order for the airline to launch scheduled flights to the city. Both Wizz Air and Ryanair have previously expressed interest in serving Mostar.
It would make make more sense if OU started flying from Mostar to Zagreb and shuttled passengers onward. I'm surprised they are not even considering these flights
ReplyDeleteI think JU would have made sense if they didn't suspend destinations such as WAW or BUD. There are a lot of Catholic pilgrims there. Still, I am sure they could still make it work with their network.
DeleteOU tried and failed in Mostar.
DeleteOU has little to offer to Mostar.
Delete9:22
DeleteOU tried and failed much wider than just OMO. In the country which such potential and beauty, strong tourism, millions of croats overseas, perfect geo-position with whole of the Balkans, not just OMO, it could be said with no reserve that they failed generally and miserably
+1 last anon
DeleteOT BEG-LCA on W6 around 130/174 passengers.
ReplyDeleteNot such a great load for an LCC but excellent for early December I guess. Depends what the fares were like.
DeleteYeah, not the best but what this goes to show is that there is considerable O&D and that JU should consider introducing two weekly flights with the same schedule as TLV. The 07.45 departure from BEG would allow connections from JFK and SVO while the return flight would connect onto their entire Western network. Not to mention that a 07.45 departure would be far more popular than Wizz Air's 06.20.
DeleteMind you, JFK proved to be extremely popular from LCA despite long connecting times on the way back.
Wizz Air had a 20% sale so a return ticket without luggage was €59.
I wonder what JU loads are like on this route at the moment.
DeleteThere is a Serbian lady I know who works for Amathus (their GSA) and she told me that the loads are pretty decent, that they improved since last year. There is also an increase in O&D passengers which makes sense since Air Serbia dropped their price from €370 to about €170 to €250.
DeleteNice load!
DeleteExcellent loads for this time of the year!
DeleteI wonder if any of the new and upcoming Cypriot airlines have any ex-Yu routes in mind.
There is Cobalt, Tus and soon new Cyprus Airways and Orion are getting flight permits.
Also Blue Air of Romania has plane or planes based in LCA.
Naah, none of them.
DeleteCobalt is still trying to consolidate their operations, they had horrible delays this summer. Luckily things are stabilizing now and about a week ago they launched CDG flights.
TUS is a bit of a joke with their SAAB aircraft and flights to secondary airports.
Orion is run by a group of Greeks who don't seem to have a clear idea of what they want.
Cyprus Airways might be looking at BEG but not anytime soon. They stated that they will concentrate on Russia, Greece, the UK and some Middle Eastern flights.
Mind you, last year, Wizz Air added their second weekly flight in mid June. This year they are moving it to March which can only mean the route is performing very well for them.
There was a large group of Slovaks and Hungarians onboard this morning. Seems like many Romanians from TSR regularly use this flight.
Thanks for the info Nemjee!
DeleteYou are welcome!
DeleteSlightly OT... looks like W6 decided not to add one extra flight to LTN since they did it for EIN.
DeleteI read somewhere the Turkish ambassador said that 2-3 million Turks visit Bosnia each year. Is that true?
ReplyDeleteBiH doesnt even get that many tourists in total. Official numbers of Turkish tourists was about 75,000 last year.
Deletelol
Delete10:02 AM +1000
DeleteI don't think in the current economic and political climate in Turkey there are 2-3 million Turkish tourists visiting the whole of the Balkans plus Greece!
To me this route seems a bit more suited for Pegasus to me but anyway good to see.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be the flying time on the Sarajevo-Mostar sector?
ReplyDeleteA beautiful airplane with a silver tulip and a white and red tail.
DeleteIt would be a short flight. Around 30 minutes.
DeleteBiH will be in second place after Hrvatska having more operational airports vs. the rest of ex-YU. SJJ, TZL, BNX and now OMO. Simply incredible given its smaller size. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteYeah but technically it has two airports with normal traffic: SJJ and TZL.
DeleteWhat you mean with "normal" and "abnormal" traffic?
DeleteWell done Mostar.
ReplyDeleteTK will have a bigger ex-Yu network then any ex-Yu airline :D
ReplyDeleteBravo Marine !
ReplyDeleteATCO
Nice news but I was first expecting they would establish flights to western Europe.
ReplyDeleteLetovi via SJJ? Logičnije bi bilo da se leti Banja Luka-Mostar-Istanbul ili još logičnije Tuzla-Mostar-Istanbul. I vrlo čudno za Turkish. Oni baš i nemaju 1stop i triangl letova. Čudno, jako čudno!
ReplyDeleteU isto vrijeme Croatia je tražila milijun EUR godišnje da leti ZAG-OMO!!! Ovo nije nevjerojatno, ovo je jedna od najvećih gluposti koje sam čuo u povijesti zrakoplovstva Hrvatske. Milijun EUR za liniju koja bi imala zavidan broj P2P putnika i feedala ostale Croatijine linije:
1. P2P: ogromna hercegovska dijaspora u Zagrebu i neposrednoj okolici.
2. P2P: najveće moguće znanstvene, obrazovne, vojne, vjerske, trgovačke i ostale gospodarstvene, sportske, obiteljske, imovinske, zdravstvene i sve ostale veze Hercegovine i Hrvatske, posebno Zagreba. Gomila hercegovskih firmi su vlasnici velikih hrvatskih poduzeća ili imaju ogromna predstavništva u Zagrebu i obratno.
3. Konekcije: velik broj hercegovaca u Osijeku (Trade air iz Zagreba), ali i ostatku Hrvatske (Pula, Zadar).
4. Konekcije: ogromna hercegovska dijaspora u Njemačkoj, Švicarkoj, Austriji, ali i drugim Europskim zemljama gdje leti Croatia.
5. Konekcije: ogromna bosanska dijaspora koja gravitira Mostaru u Danskoj, Njemačkoj, Švicarskoj, Beleluxu, ali i drugim zemljama gdje leti Croatia.
6. Hodočasnici u Međugorje iz Hrvatske, ali i ostali koji bi tako mogli letjeti preko Zagreba, a govorimo o mnogo tisuća ljudi godišnje.
7. Cargo, obzirom na trgovačku razmjenu koja je ogromna, ali i konekcije carga preko Zagreba.
8. Mogućnost da se pokrene i linije iz OMO za FCO, te da se time izbjegne nepotreban ferry za chartere (Bejrut, ali to otvara i moguće druge vjerske chartere).
9. Fondovi Hrvatske za podršku dijaspore, od čega velika večina novaca ide upravo u Hercegovinu.
10. Volja lokalne zajednice, pa i aerodroma, da financijski sudjeluje u ovoj liniji, ali ne sa MILIJUN EUR. Konačno mogla se pokrenuti inicijativa da Hrvatska uvrsti ovu liniju u PSO.
I uz sve te potencijale oni traže MILIJUN EUR! Sad će im Turci odvući gro potencijalnih putnika, a onda ako krenu će reči, a sorry, hebiga, nema putnika. Pa normalno da ih nema ako ih prepustiš konkurenciji koja ima bitno manje perspektive, ali ima pameti i poslovne hrabrosti. Još da se pričeka da dođe Air Serbia i Austrian pa da definitivno zapečatimo svaku šansu za pokretanje Croatijinih letova.
OU-ova mreza je suvise slaba da bi se pozicionirali kao vazan igrac za transferne putnike. Isto tako, tesko da bi mogli slati ista vece od Q400 tako da kargo opcija otpada.
DeleteNa kraju krajeva, svako ko putuje iz Mostara za Pulu, Osijek ili Split ce radije ici busom ili kolima mesto avionom, posebno jer OU ne bi bila ispod €200.
Skutori vole da isture levi lakat kroz prozor svog Merdze. Tolika ogromna dijaspora i OU ide pod led cccc.
DeleteKolika je to "ogromna zajednica hrvata iz hercegovine" u Zagrebu i okolini?
DeleteZašto bi cargo na Q400 otpao? Nije cargo samo kontejner govedine, pobogu. Cargo je i pošta, ekspresne pošiljke, uzorci, sve ono što volumenom i kilažom nije veliko, a mora stići hitno. DHL, UPS i ostali su na tome izgradili bogatstvo.
DeleteHercegovci možda vole do Zagreba sa laktom izvan merđe, ali preko Zagreba do Frankfurta, Minhena, Berlina...
Do Splita jasno da ne bi avionom kada je autom sati i pola, ali do Osijeka i Pule, bogami bi. Autom je to nekih 6 sati, do Osijeka isto toliko. A uostalom nisu svi hercegovci mercedaši. Što je sa kulturanjacima, znanstvenicima, profesorima, hrvatskim businessmenima, hodočasnicima, turistima, sportašima, svečenicima, političarima... kako je Purger napisao.
U Hrvatskoj živi pola milijuna građana ih BiH, ali taj broj je daleko veći jer dobar dio hercegovaca ima hrvatsko državljanstvo.
Jedini problem je taj sto OU ne bi bila ispod €200 za karte ka PUY i OSI dakle malo kome bi se isplatilo a da ne spominjemo to sto bosanci obozavaju da vuku torbe, dakle bus all the way.
DeleteA roba na propelercu je smesan pojam. Ne moze on da povuce vise od 300 kila cim ima vise od 40 putnika. Ne toliko zbog tezine koliko zbog nedostatka prostora.
I also think that Tzl-Omo-Ist would be better. Perhaps with fifth freedom between Tzl-Omo
ReplyDeleteAviation news from Bosnia is always so tragic.
ReplyDeleteTragic? Do you really know the meaning of that word?
DeleteYes.
DeleteBravo Turkish Airlines
ReplyDelete