NEWS FLASH
Etihad Airways will increase its operations on flights between Abu Dhabi and Belgrade starting July 1 from daily to ten weekly. The Emirati carrier will add a second daily service between the two capitals each Monday, Thursday and Saturday, departing Abu Dhabi at 08.05 local time and arriving in Belgrade just before midday as flight EY69. It will complement its existing daily schedule which departs the Emirati capital at 02.05 and arrives in Belgrade at 05.45. The two aircraft will then swap on the inbound service to Abu Dhabi, with the jet which arrives in Belgrade in the early morning each day operating the return flight as EY70 on Monday, Thursday and Saturday with a departure time of 11.35 (ten minutes before the outbound service arrives). The other return service to Abu Dhabi, which runs on a daily basis, will depart at 13.00. The development marks the first time Etihad has increased frequencies on the route since launching operations between the two cities in the spring of 2013. Previously, its nearby competitors, Qatar Airways and Flydubai, increased frequencies to Belgrade from their respective hubs, with both maintaining daily flights this summer. Etihad will utlise its 136-seat Airbus A320 aircraft, featuring sixteen seats in business class and the remaining 120 in economy, on all ten of its Belgrade flights. Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, Virgin Australia and Oman Air all codeshare on the service.
Good news for BEG!
ReplyDeleteFinally Etihad takes action.
ReplyDeleteWell this is a pleasant surprise!
ReplyDeleteNice to see EY finally up their BEG capacity, but the timings, especially on the return BEG-AUH sector is pointless. With QR and FZ operating around the same midday/early afternoon departure, would of been better to have just upgauged to the A330.
ReplyDeleteThey needed a morning departure from AUH. Ever since JU suspended their flights they lost a lot of connections.
DeleteThey also need an early morning arrival into AUH but yet 2 flights arrive less than 2 hours of each other in AUH giving no benefit on the return. EY practically has 2 waves of departures from AUH, which is where the JU timings had more benefit than these new EY flights.
DeleteUpgauging to the A332 would give them a small increase in business class and the economy class increase theyll see now with the new additional flights. Not to mention the advantage of being the only airline from the ME with a widebody to BEG.
Demand is definately there. Both EY and FZ currently have fantastic loads to BEG.
I agree about the early morning arrival but at least like this they improve their overall connectivity. Mind you, even Qatar's connections are not that great when flying out of Belgrade. Many destinations have connections longer than six hours.
DeleteI guess that's why a lot of them prefer to add frequencies over capacity in this part of Europe.
the main reason why a company wants to introduce widebody instead of narrowbody is the business class and economy plus class demand.
DeleteHmm,we are ready for competing in number of flights...
ReplyDeleteWhen AS flew to Abu Dabi you could say there was double daily flights. Then there was 7 weekly, now there is 10 weekly.
ReplyDeleteSeems like there would still be demand a demand for Air Serbia's daily flight.
Apparently only for a couple of summer months...
ReplyDeleteYes, only few summer months increase!
ReplyDeleteI don't why they were waiting for so long. Every connection via Abu Dhabi is at least 100 euros cheaper than Doha or Dubai. Last year I've flown SYD-AUH on Etihad and AUH-BEG with ASL and both cabins were 95% full, and it was FEBRUARY! I came back in march and on ASL flight there wasn't an avaiable seat. So, there is a demand for A321 or even A332, maybe even second daily flight with A319/A320
ReplyDeleteThe second daily was there, that was the JU flight (JU800/801). They stopped AUH at the begining of the winter timetable so as to ‘use the aircraft in boosting European flights’.
DeleteInstead, after the aircraft comes back to BEG around 11pm, the aircraft sits in BEG until the next morning, if in fact it ever goes anywhere considering the amount of frequencies theyve cut the past 2 years. This morning, both A320’s and an A319 sat on the ground in BEG. Amazing!
332 ARA set on the ground as well
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