Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is in talks with a number carriers over the introduction of flights to several unserved markets. Speaking to the "eKapija" portal, the General Manager of Belgrade Airport, Saša Vlaisavljević, said, "Nikola Tesla Airport is constantly on the look-out for new customers and is in contact with a number of interested parties concerning the launch of new flights. We hope to soon make announcements regarding the introduction of nonstop services to several unserved destinations in Europe, as well as to Morocco, India, Canada and a new destination in China. The airport's capacity currently stands at 7.5 million passenger per year, which is sufficient for continued and sustainable growth within the next few years".
Previously, it was reported that Royal Air Maroc plans to introduce services from Casablanca to Belgrade by year's end. India's largest and busiest carrier, IndiGo, has said it sees potential in serving the Serbian market in the near future. An airline spokesperson previously told EX-YU Aviation News that IndiGo held talks with the Serbian government through a third party. "We have been involved in fruitful discussions with the Serbian government and the local tourism board through an intermediary concerning potential operations to Serbia. We plan to continue these talks and explore opportunities to serve the market sometime in the future, in order to offer affordable and unmatched travel experience to passengers between India and Serbia". Last September, Serbia become the only European country to abolish visa requirements for Indian citizens. It has also inked a new Air Service Agreement with India. Meanwhile, Air Serbia has expressed interest in serving Toronto in Canada, while the Chinese Ambassador to Serbia has confirmed that talks are underway for the introduction of a second service from China, from Shanghai to Belgrade.
The developments come in the lead-up to the airport's takeover by French concession and construction company VINCI, which is expected in late September. Belgrade Airport has continued to post strong passenger growth with its 24--hour record achieved last Friday, July 20, when 23.335 travellers passed through its doors. It overtook the airport's previous best performance set just several days before on Monday, July 16. During the last two weeks, the airport handled over 300.000 passengers. "Considering that the number of charter flights has increased by 25%, that we recorded passenger growth of 7% during the first half of the year and that we handled 2.5 million travellers in 2018 eight days ahead of last, Belgrade Airport is poised for another record year", the airport said in a statement.
Bravo BEG
ReplyDeleteGreat news. So we can expect these to be launched in 2019?
ReplyDeleteToronto will start next June. Official announcement soon.
DeleteMislim da ce objaviti kad Vinsi preuzme aerodrom,da upotpune ceremoniju i time potvrde tezu da ce Vinsi pomoci AS u pokretanju novih interkontinentalnih letova.
DeleteSecond widebody for JU?
Delete@:Anonymous23 July 2018 at 09:12
DeleteToronto will start next June. Official announcement soon.
Bollocks !!!
Unless Air Serbia gets another massive injection of state funds there'll be no Toronto flights, and no Canadian airliner in their right mind would start flights to Serbia, they're not that mad or lost all their senses. Only reason for JFK flights is cause air Serbia is heavily subsidized in tune of €60 million+ per year, just like JAT Air Serbia is losing massive amounts of money and no matter what some here say about Air Serbia, the facts are quite evident presented here on this blog by Serbian posters in the know.
I still can't get my head around India.
ReplyDeleteCan the A321neo make it from New Delhi to Belgrade?
DeleteYes without a problem.
DeleteThanks. It's possible then that they may use this aircraft if they start these flights. They have 25 on order and they start arriving in 2019.
DeleteFrom the Indian carrier it would make more sense if it was Jet Airways since they our partially Etihad owned.
DeleteActually Indigo would be fantastic since they are a low cost airline so they could offer some great fares. If they do this I wouldn't be surprised to see growth in interest from Serbia to India too.
Delete+1
DeleteIn the first 5 months this year, 2.330 Indians have visited Serbia, 782 in May according to the Serbian Bureau of Statistics. This seems to be a growing trend. Initial growth is slow, however Serbia is still an unknown destination for travelers. I think next year we will see similar trends with the Indians as we are seeing with the Chinese this year, for which Serbia has seen an increase in 82,1% and 30.438 travelers as of 31st May 2018.
DeleteIndigo has expressed its wish to co-operate with JU, and are seeking to launch flights to Europe.
Interesting times ahead for BEG, especially with the new owner in charge.
ReplyDeleteDo we know the exact date they will be in charge from?
DeleteSo next year we could have long haul to
ReplyDelete- New York
- Toronto
- Beijing
- Shanghai
- Delhi?
That would be a nice collection of cities. Hope it works out.
DeleteHaving both Toronto and Delhi would be good for transfer pax seeing as Toronto has a huge Indian community
DeleteThere are some major, well established players here but it is big market no doubt about it. With some inter-line, they could pick-up some pax if scheduling and especially pricing works out.
DeleteIf they handled 23.335 travellers on July 20th, and they didn't fall apart, it means that airport capacity is above the 7.5 million mentioned by the acting CEO.
ReplyDelete23.335 * 365 days = 8.5 million passengers
It seems that people no nothing about the business they are running. Just lucky as they are in the right moment in time, with European economy growing (and driving growth), visa waivers for multiple countries (China, India, Iran, Turkey), and the gov't itself pushing for many destinations (for the sake of PR).
Yes. Every achievement at BEG is just pure luck and chance.... Please.
DeleteNot necessarily true, they might have operated way above their capacity during certain periods of the day like between 11.00 and 13.00. Just because they can doesn't mean they should handle those numbers.
DeleteThere are many airports working above capacity, IST, WAW, LGW...
DeleteSplit is operating waaaay above its current capacities.
DeleteBelgrade airport can handle around 9 million pax now, it was designed to handle up to 10 million, adding terminal 3 and further extensions will increase that capacity to 13-14 million. Numbers airport won't achieve before 2035.
Delete"Serbia become the only European country to abolish visa requirements for Indian citizens.."
ReplyDeleteWhy are all other European countries as well as basically the rest of the world keeping the visa regime, while Serbia abolishes visas.?
Because they can.
DeleteWhy not? The EU and the West have shown what their attitude is towards Serbia so we are looking for friends elsewhere.
DeleteAnon 09:17 You're asking quite dangerous questions, you can be lynched here if you continue to query. Keep silent, we all know why ;)
DeleteBecause Serbia is poor enough that no one would leave everything behind just to immigrate here, while at the same time independent enough to carry out its own immigration policy (unlike EU members for instance).
DeleteParadoxically, that's proving to be a very lucrative opportunity.
well "the West" didnt inspire other countries in the East to abolish visas for the likes of Iran and India.
DeleteLike which countries in the east when they are all in the eu
DeleteAny idea at how many passengers we are looking at this year?
ReplyDelete5.6-5.7 million.
DeleteAko povecanje bude 7-8%,znaci oko 5.700000
DeleteThis year's charter season has attributed to the growth quite a lot. It has been a very good year in that respect.
DeleteWho could operate the Shanghai flights? Hainan?
ReplyDeleteLikely them or China Eastern.
DeleteGreat to hear about the passenger record. Usually they have those in August.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see some initiative and flights to a couple of strategically important markets being negotiated.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who is leading these talks. Vinci or the current management?
DeleteIm excited about morocco and casablanca hope it is regular service and not charters only
ReplyDeleteI think in the past they mentioned that these will be regular flights.
DeleteThey need first to abolish visa regime with Morocco.
DeleteBosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania all need visas for Morocco. They are easy to obtain but still necessary to be removed first in order for such a line to succeed.
DeleteI'm more excited by them talking about more European markets. Some of the unserved ones from BEG are Portugal, Ukraine, Finland, the Baltics. Will be interesting to see how this develops.
ReplyDeleteOut of those I see Portugal and Ukraine working out.
DeleteGood work from Serbia. I assume these flights might happen next summer.
ReplyDeleteis there a list with daily records of the number of passengers on ex yu airports?
ReplyDeleteI think Split still holds the title of having the most passengers in a single day in ex-yu.
DeleteThe Egyptian ambassador said recently that they are working on resuming Cairo-Belgrade flights. So that's another city we could see on BEG's route map.
ReplyDeleteEgyptair is long overdue.
DeleteJU was set to relaunch CAI with the first wave of destinations when they rebranded as Air Serbia. This however didn't happen with the instability in Egypt at the time. I think CAI would work well for JU.
DeleteWhich French destinations or French Oversea Territories do you think BEG will receive?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the French favourise themselves a lot. So Vinci will work very close with France.
There is absolutely no demand for any flights to any overseas french territory. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
DeleteJos jedno vanredno sletanje na Tesli
ReplyDeletehttps://www.blic.rs/vesti/drustvo/pozlilo-putniku-avion-vanredno-sleteo-na-beogradski-aerodrom/w1lhxve
So ironic that the name of the airline is "Detur" :)
DeleteA reduction over time in a Serbia's population this year can be caused by several factors mainly by heavy emigration,This represents a decrease of 5% in total population since the peak census figure.
ReplyDeleteAlmost 300 000 emigration in last 4 months.
Albania and Kosovo are leaders in heavy emigration this year at least 615 000 economic emigrants In Europe and Middle East.