The two busiest airports in the former Yugoslavia, Belgrade and Zagreb, are preparing for a busy winter season, which will see them handle more flights than ever before, following on from what was a record summer. Both will witness the arrival of new airlines, additional frequencies on existing services and an upgrades in equipment used by carriers.
Belgrade Airport will see at least three new airlines maintain flights to the city, which were absent last winter season. They include Atlasglobal, Hainan Airlines and Transavia, while Slovenia's VLM Airlines is also expected to launch services from Maribor, although tickets are yet to be put on sale. This winter, Wizz Air will maintain flights to an additional three destinations - Malta, Friedrichshafen and Hannover, while easyJet will add an extra weekly service from Geneva for a total of three per week commencing mid-February. Transavia, which introduced three weekly services from Amsterdam this April, will double its frequencies from late February. Other additions will include an extra three weekly flights from Dubai, operated by Flydubai, for a total of seven per week commencing November 25, while Qatar Airways will also maintain daily services from Doha, up from four. The Qatari carrier will boost capacity from its Airbus A320 to the A321 jet on the route.
Greece's Aegean Airlines plans to boost capacity to Belgrade with the carrier to run three weekly services to the Serbian capital with a mix of Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft. As a result, its Belgrade route will move to mainline operations and will no longer be flown by Olympic Air's Dash 8 turboprops. Furthermore, both Israiar and Arkia Israeli Airlines will continue to maintain flights from Tel Aviv over the winter. On the other hand, Air Serbia will cut down on its operations and will no longer run services from its hub to Abu Dhabi and Istanbul unlike last winter season, however, it will continue to fly to Venice, which was launched this summer.
Several carriers have committed to increasing both frequencies and capacity to Zagreb Airport when compared to last winter, with El Al Israel Airlines recently announcing it will extend its seasonal summer flight programme between Tel Aviv and Zagreb by a month, until the end of November. Services will be maintained once per week. Furthermore, as previously reported, Croatia Airlines has extended its seasonal flights to Barcelona and Lisbon until early January, while Qatar Airways will uphold its two daily service throughout the winter, up from last year's ten weekly flights. LOT Polish Airlines will increase frequencies to Zagreb by maintaining eight instead of six weekly services, all of which are scheduled to run with the Embraer E175 aircraft, although the airline has shown to be flexible with its equipment and regularly deploys larger aircraft depending on demand.
Carriers that will be operating to Zagreb Airport this year, but were absent last winter, include Emirates, with a five weekly service from Dubai, as well as Norwegian Air Shuttle, which will extend its seasonal services from Stockholm and Copenhagen. Furthermore, Lufthansa's low cost unit Eurowings will add its fourth destination to the Croatian capital, from Dusseldorf, starting October 31. Sales for the new route have been encouraging, resulting in the airline's decision to run the service three times per week instead of two, as initially scheduled. On the other hand, Monarch Airlines, which launched seasonal flights from the United Kingdom to Zagreb this summer and planned to extend them throughout the winter has collapsed and discontinued all operations. In addition, both ČSA Czech Airlines and Brussels Airlines have limited their operations to the Croatian capital and will now run flights only during the summer. Zagreb Airport is targeting passenger growth of 8% in 2017, although it is expected to surpass this figure.
EX-YU Aviation News will publish planned airline modifications for all of the major airports in the former Yugoslavia in the coming weeks. The 2017/18 winter season begins this Sunday and runs until March 25, 2018.
Comments
Overall, it will be a great winter here in Belgrade. I am especially waiting for October numbers. I think we can expect around 480.000 passengers.
I can't imagine many people wanting to go to Catalonia now.
Ipak samo cetiri nedelje deli od ojavljivanja koncesionara na aerodromu Nikola Tesla. Od ulaska koncesionara, dogradnje aerodroma i trostrukog uvecanja saobracaja i putnika za vreme trajanja koncesije od 25 godine, jeste realno ocekivanje. Razvoj Srbije ce omoguciti preporod putnickog i kargo saobracaja. Uz ucesce Niskog, Kraljevackog i Uzickog aerodroma, sa nisko bbudzetnim, kargo i carter saobracajem u sedecih pet, sest godina putnicki saobracaj ce povecati za vise od milion putnika godisnje. Ne namere da pisanjem na ovom blogu da bih izazivao pesimiste, realiste ili bilo koga. Aerodromi Srbije i auto putevi su jedini nacin da Srbija opravda svoj polozaj mosta Jugoistocne Evrope. Tim putem se krece. Dali moze brze? Moguce je.
Svakako da susedna Hrvatska ne sedi skrstenih ruku. Zemlja turizma i relativno za sada liberalnija zemlja za privlacenje saobracaja. Ocigledno da se i Srbija "budi", definitivno.
Pozdrav iz Kraljeva.
Radovan. 😀🌍🇷🇸🌏🇦🇺🌎🗺🇬🇧🇭🇷😀
As for the next year, that will be interesting. With several different types of tourism growing rapidly (health, holiday, city break) with business travel increasing, both the ski cup and the European Handball Championship in January, plus next year being the first full year of the new terminal operations, anything below 3,5 million in 2018. would be less than optimal.
they usually have some of the cheapest fares to North America from Belgrade. I assume it's the same case on their Zagreb flights.
I think the number of frequencies stays the same though.
What about W6 to LCA? How many times does it operate this winter?
Wish all the best to BEG and ZAG!
Greetings from SKP
That said, JU is doing exceptionally well in LCA and they did manage to fill the A320 several times in October.
No flights to Sofija, Dublin, Tirana, Mostar, Manchester, and Roma nonstop, and all year Madrid, Prague, Milano...
No flights to Korea, USA, China, India.
And you still think there are no potentials?
Tek onda ce uvesti LCC, od kojih ja osobno zazirem.
Yet Zagreb is increasing landing fees and actively pursues legacy carriers and ignored LCCs.
Your logic isn't working.
They had few flights here and there since, but not regular, mostly charters.
Time for SAS to return to Zagreb.
Zagreb Airport needs TAP, SAS, Finnair, Aer Lingus, Alitalia to return year around flights and Brussels, CSA and Iberia to go year round too.
Ideally getting EasyJet, Transavia France, Voltea, Vueling and Air Baltic coming to Zagreb offering good choice of LCC destinations, would be nice too.
ZAG wants to have less airlines but only those that can actually pay the full price.
In EU you can not pay money out of budget. That is crime!
And while we're at it - I think more Croats should at least consider flying via Copenhagen, you can easily find way cheaper fares than those on your most popular routes.
Also, the HR minister of tourism said it himself that they will have to start subsidizing foreign airlines. Someone even posted a quote here.
Stop making things up, no one said so in Croatia, for the EU prohibits government subsidies of any form. Zagreb airport has some incentives and Croatian Tourism board works with all major airlines in getting people to Croatia, in form of PR, marketing and free travel for tour operator agents.
The European Union does allow for subsidies. Have you heard of a thing called CAP? lol
Gari Capelli, Globus Magazin. August 2017
What ministry of tourism is doing with the funds is precisely their job. And they're one of probably few ministries that are actually doing a good job.
I don't get why they are playing it so safe.
Ministry can not subsidize airline. It can not. It is against law in EU. There are no "side possibility" in EU. There is huge low about preventing of nonlegal money traffic and several thousands workers are working on that in EU to prevent this way of financing.
Only institution that can make some kind of financing and subventions is Croatian tourist board, but it is not financed by tax payers money. It is financed by tourist fee, hotel membership fee, agencies fee, transport organization fee etc. Goal of Board is to promote Croatian tourism and to bring more tourists into Croatia. That is why all those organizations connected to tourism pay fee to it.
But even in Croatian tourist Board they have to make tender, have defined rules of tender with same chance for subventions by all interested companies, and have supervision on those subventions.
Give me the link, I'd like to see that, I am sure you'll find a link since you're so sure in your statement.
EU does not permit any form of corporate subsidy !!! Read EU article 88.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_competition_law
Here summery of some of the competition rules. Croatian Airlines had to pay back 597 million kuna in 2012, cause EU didn't see it as a loan when EU needed to borrow money from the Croatian state budget. Croatian Airlines almost bankrupted as a result.
EU is quite strict with these things. Anyways, show me the link to minster's statement.
Also, I will repeat my question: have you heard of CAP? lol
p.s. the EU even allows state aid to government companies but only as long as it happens once a decade. When there is a will, there is a way.