Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport today handled its five-millionth passenger of the year and will close the bidding process for its 25-year concession at 15.30 CET. The five-millionth traveller, sports journalist Nebojša Višković, travelling on an Air Serbia flight to London Heathrow, was welcomed by Serbia's Prime Minister, Ana Brnabić, the Mayor of Belgrade and Chairman of the Air Serbia Supervisory Board, Siniša Mali, as well as the General Manager of Belgrade Airport, Saša Vlaisavljević. The airport has seen average growth of some 9% this year, which has been fuelled primarily by foreign carriers. New arrivals have included Transavia, AtlasGlobal and Hainan Airlines, while several carriers have boosted frequencies and launched new routes, most notably Wizz Air, which based a second aircraft in the Serbian capital.
| Year | PAX |
|---|---|
| 1971 | 1 million |
| 1975 | 2 million |
| 1988 | 3 million |
| 2014 | 4 million |
| 2017 | 5 + million |
Belgrade Airport anticipates welcoming 5.3 million passengers this year, which would represent an increase of 8% on 2016. "This will be the first time in its 55-year history that the airport will handle over five million passengers. It represents the continuation of one and a half years of sustained passenger growth and is the pinnacle of the airport's outstanding operational results", the operator said in a statement yesterday. In November, Belgrade Airport recorded its sixteenth consecutive month of passenger growth. Over the past decade, figures have increased 138%, with the largest number of travellers added in 2014 when over a million extra passengers used the airport's services, primarily as a result of Air Serbia.
Today will also mark the end of the second and final phase of bidding for the 25-year concession of the airport, which has previously been extended three times. The Public Body overseeing the process has approved the addition of another party to the consortium led by China's HNA Group, with the Cyprus-based Severika Limited joining Hainan Air Travel Service, HNA Airport Group and China National Aero-Technology International Engineering Corporation. Meanwhile, South Korea has continued to lobby in favour of the consortium comprised of Incheon International Airport Corporation, Turkey's Ic Ictas Altypi and Russia's VTB Capital. The Deputy Foreign Minister of South Korea visited Belgrade this week where he spoke with Serbia's President about the bid and indicated that there is strong interest for the establishment of nonstop flights. It marks the third high-profile visit by a member of South Korea's cabinet to Serbia within the past six months. Last week, Jin Air announced plans to inaugurate flights between Seoul and the Serbian capital in 2020. Other parties bidding for the airport concession include the Franco-Swiss consortium comprised of Zurich Airport, Meridiam and Eiffage, a consortium made up of India's GMR Infrastructure and Greece's GEK Terma and a stand-alone bid by Vinci. The Public Body will now score each bid in twelve different categories, with a preliminary decision expected on December 25.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) announced yesterday it is willing to help the future concessionaire finance the large-scale investments planned for the airport. The Serbian Prime Minister noted that the final concession agreement will be made public and noted that while she does not want to comment on the submitted bids, the offers have exceeded initial expecations.
Comments
Jeez was it really necessary to have the PRIME MINISTER welcome an airport passenger?
I hope they FINALLY decide to include BEG and launch daily BEG-TGD or BEG-BSL to compete with ZRH. The busiest routes. Domestic flights within Serbia will be amazing too.
Yes of course. This will be at the forefront of people's minds 4 months from now when the elections take place.
You think SNS will allow them to forget it?
YM is THE biggest player on routes between Serbia and Montenegro. Infact, it represents 50% of their pax base, yet for JU, significantly smaller - around 9%. So any airline entering this market, will affect YM far more than JU.
As for protection - traffic rights do not currently allow for anyone other than a Serbian or Montenegrin airline to fly these routes. Until that changes, no one else will fly it.
That said, it is highly unlikely that an LCC will fly anytime soon between BEG or TGD/TIV simply because of the high cost of airport operations - aeronautical charges, ground handling charges, fuel costs and pax airport taxes are amongst the highest in Europe. To add to this, the short flying time, makes these routes highly unlikely for LCCs, as all of these factors work against the LCC model
Ryanair was 'fascinating' 5 to 10 years ago. Since then the market has adapted to their tricks and tactics.
Tell me, what novelty would they bring to the Serbian market? Taxes are preventing JU and YM from offering cheaper fares (like JU does to BNX) so how would FR get around this?
Od 1971 do 2017 godine, taj broj ce biti udvostrucen za samo pet iducih godina. Danas je dan pobednika koncesije i pocetak preporoda glavne vazdusne luke Srbije. Ko bude dao najbolju ponudu i prihvatio uslove, njegova je uprava za iducih cetvrt veka. Zaista danas pocinje nova, ozbiljna era na aerodromu Nikola Tesla. Samim tim i buducnost putnickih aerodroma Srbije. Suncan dan je na dan koncesije. Takva su ocekivanja daljeg razvoja komercijalne avijacije. Da je srecan pocetak pobedniku za aerodrom BELGRADE - NIKOLA TESLA. 🇷🇸🌐🇷🇸
Radovan, Kraljevo.
Also, FR's entry to the market would be marked by extremely low fares thus creating an unsustainable business environment in which neither JU nor YM could survive. In the end, the consumer would benefit but only for a little while.
I agree with Anon 10.25, 5.6 million is extremely realistic.
http://sofiaglobe.com/2017/12/08/serious-incident-above-bulgaria-air-serbia-plane-loses-parts-in-flight/
In any event, 1 flight per day from FR would hardly make an impact on either JU or YM. However, if they were ever to get to the same sort of frequency as that of YM and JU, then it would be a different story.
That said, airports will not lose their shirts on this OD just to have FR or W6 fly between these 2 countries. They have high fees, make a lot of money and don't need to discount to accommodate LCCs on the routes between Serbia and Montenegro
If the average daily number of pax is about 10.000 in this time of the year, 369.000 pax - 70.000 pax (first 7 days of December), that would put BEG around 300k for November, right ?
Last year November achieved something like 331 k ?
So, we are looking at a negative trend in November, OR the 5th million passenger in reality showed up much earlier ?
thnx
cargo - 6,827
but, hey this is serbia, mayors are opening traffic lights, bus stops and gas stations and some ministers elevators
dude, gastarbeiters use gastarbeiter routes it is what work
all the "leisure" destinations are already served
btw there are a lot of gastaerbeiters on cyprus routes, isreal is more about transfer pax and them coming to us, less vice versa
personally i don't like these comment deletions. especially i hate it when it is done on T6
http://rs.n1info.com/a231408/Vesti/Vesti/Nakon-semafora-i-kontejneri-svecano-pusteni-u-rad.html
cargo is denominated in tonnes
ASL carries mostly transfers on the route while O&D and tourists going to Cyprus use Wizz Air.
not enough time to read through everything and even make some comments :D
A few reasons:
- there was a huge drop in the number of pax (they failed to reveal this number today)
- they lied about the 5m pax today (if it was a few days ago as some say), meaning that they cannot be trusted for any other figure they reveal
- an attempt to hide the figure from the bidders?
So many possibilities...
The article itself mentions they had growth in November.
Other than that you are just a conspiracy theorist who may be a bit jealous. Numbers will be out next week. But then again it doesn't matter. You will just say it's fake. Interesting you didn't have a tantrum about the absence of Pristina, Skopje, Ljubljana airport numbers.
So the old JAT didn’t just disappear, they got involved in selling baby formula from Australia to China :p
https://www.google.com/search?q=ASX:JAT&gws_rd=ssl
Looking at their schedule they are after business traffic.
"Could you then tell me why there are short LCC flights from ... Mallorca-Barcelona (30min)"
Oh my, I can tell you. That's because Majorca is an ISLAND! What a failure you are!
I guess there are going to be even more Chinese tourists coming here so chances are increasing of seeing non-stop flights from PEK!
If 17 left to PRG this means 85 left to China = LF = 29%.
Lets see if the route will last, without being a hater or pessimist.
Belgrade - 9 million
Zagreb - 7.5 million
Split - 5.5 million
Dubrovnik - 5.0 million
Ljubljana - 3.2 million
Skopje - 3.0 million
Pristina - 3.0 million
Sarajevo - 3.0 million
Pula - 2.0 million
Zadar - 2.0 million
Podgorica - 2.0 million
Tivat - 2.0 million
Rijeka - 1.0 million
Kada linija postane non-stop generisace i vise putnika.
BEG has been connected to Tunisia and Malta for many years now.