The Germania Group will strengthen its operations to the former Yugoslavia next year and has launched its first bookings for the 2018 summer season, which will see it return to Dubrovnik, Niš, Ohrid, Pristina, Skopje and Split, as well as launch operations to Zadar, In Croatia, the carrier will continue to maintain flights from Zurich to Split, but will up its existing frequencies from one to two weekly. Furthermore, it plans to inaugurate services from Zurich to Zadar from May 12, with flights to run twice per week until October 13. The airline will maintain its cooperation with Condor on services from Frankfurt to Dubrovnik and Split next year as well.
Germania entered the Serbian market this summer by launching seasonal services between Zurich and Niš. However, the route was quickly upgraded to year-round operations with the airline to continue to maintain flights twice per week during the winter season, although services will be down to one weekly rotation over selected periods when demand is deemed to be its weakest. As of next summer season, flights will continue to operate twice per week. Germania competes against Swiss International Air Lines on the route, which itself launched seasonal flights between the two cities this summer and recently announced it too would extend operations over the winter period.
Germania's summer programme will again be complemented by flights from Zurich and Geneva to Pristina, and from Zurich to Skopje and Ohrid. These services are operated on behalf of local tour operator Air Prishtina. Furthermore, it will maintain services from Basel, Bergamo, Dusseldorf, London Gatwick, Munich and Verona to the Kosovan capital. The airline was Pristina's busiest in 2016, carrying some 270.000 passengers on flights to and from the city. Similarly, Germania was the third busiest carrier in Macedonia last year. The airline said that it could further expand its operations to the former Yugoslavia, noting, "Our route network is undergoing constant expansion and further destinations will be announced over the following weeks". On all Germania flights passengers are permitted free baggage allowance of at least 20kg. Ticket prices also include a snack or hot meal (depending on flight duration), as well as soft drinks, newspapers, magazines and all taxes and fees.
Comments
Germania's LF in July was 42%. Given that they added more flights during the winter holidays shows that they are optimistic about INI. Who knows, maybe they end up adding Frankfurt or Dusseldorf to INI. Could work with one or two weekly flights.
They seem to be a well-run airline meaning that they understand that time is needed for a certain destination to mature and to start performing well. Given how low costs are I am sure they are making money with this relatively mediocre loadfactor.
Don't forget how badly QR performed in BEG when they launched their own flights. If they gave up back then they would have missed out on a lot, like filling a daily A321.
What is the difference between Germania and Germania Flug. Germania gets rave reviews not sure about Germania flug though.
;)
Germania Flug is their Swiss subsidary and has only 2 or 3 aircrafts.
Hardly a single route that they operate in own name / at own risk to the area. They have bases e.g. in Bremen, Dresden, Erfurt, Muenster/Osnabrueck - from all of these airports/regions there is not a single (at least seasonal) service to the Ex-Yu Adriatic coast and they could easily operate them, they have the right metal (smaller med haul a/c's: A319s) and routes are much shorter to Croatia compared to Canaries and Turkey. They don't seem to realize their own potential in their home markets.
What about ronair open base in Budapest and introduce flights to ZAG, LJU and RJK?
Swiss on the other hand generally failed in Geneva as a result of a bad strategy. They underestimated easyJet's role in the market.
easyJet was the triumphant carrier on the market simply because it knew what it was doing.
ZRH is LX's home airport so they are far more competitive there. They know how to deal with their competition and to defend their share of the cake.
I am sure both Swiss and Germania will do fine in INI. The market is big, no doubt about that. Both airlines need to wait out for it to matures. In a year or two I am sure we will see both airlines add more flights/seats between the two cities.
Airport Passenger & Security Tax 35.00
Passenger Charge 1.06
Passenger Service Charge 15.00
also from Swiss
Taxes, Fees & Charges
Airport Passenger Security & Noise Charge Switzerland CHF 35.00
CAD Passenger Charge Serbia CHF 1.50
Passenger Service Charge Serbia CHF 16.00
Is there a signn of INI-BTS impact ?
1. I think back then they had double daily flights plus the code-share with Alitalia.
2. Better times out of BEG/FCO.
3. Connections on both ends.
All easyJet could rely on was the O&D market which probably isn't that big to start with.
I guess in the end they found better use for the aircraft.
Mind you, Wizz Air suspended their own Belgrade-Rome flights long before Air Serbia was established. Their LF was quite bad, around 65%. Then again, it's worth mentioning that arriving at BEG at 00.25 wasn't too appealing, no matter how cheap their flights were.
For example, we can take the busiest month, August, back in 2011 to compare the two airlines.
BEG-FCO
Wizz Air: 2.592 passengers on nine flights, LF 83%
Jat Airways: 3.789 passengers on 23 flights.
BEG-MXP
Jat Airways: 3.222 passengers on 18 flights.
However, if we compare Jat's performance the previous August then we can see they recorded a sharp rise in passenger numbers, despite Wizz Air entering the market.
August 2010:
BEG-FCO 3.205 passengers (+23% in 2011)
BEG-MXP 2.375 passengers (+18% in 2011)
To the list of airlines that failed on this market we can also add Air One which suspended their MXP flights and that one airline that wanted to link BEG and Forli back in 2010.
In my opinion, Air Serbia didn't directly defeat these airlines, they just found a way to make Italy work. So far no other airline has done that, with the exception of Alitalia, of course.
Given that Ryanair wants to build a true hub in Rome with connections and all that, we might see them at BEG... or INI if they are adventurous enough.
easyJet is too static when it comes to Serbia. I think they don't really have a strategy and I don't see what other route besides ORY they could launch. I think HAM-BEG could have worked but then ASL launched it... and now they are anyway closing the base.
Hope this helped. :)
Would be different if Wizz flew BTS-BEG.
JU has tiny capacity on ATRs anyways and Austrian has increased capacity- no more F70s and fewer DH4 ops- now more 120 seater (Embraers) which would indicate that pax number has risen/is on rise (at least for OS).
Btw, your numbers on gsw load in july are total bs.