The Macedonian Ministry for Transport and Communications has issued a public call for the submission of applications in order to grant financial support for the launch of new routes. Those applying must have handled at least ten million passengers in 2017 and recorded a profit of 25 million euros. The winning carrier must establish and/or maintain a base with at least one aircraft in Skopje and Ohrid by December 1 at the latest for the duration of the three-year financial support program. Furthermore, the carrier in question must launch at least two new routes from Skopje by November 1 and four new routes from Ohrid, the first two by the end of 2018 and the rest a year after being granted state support.
The newly launched routes from Skopje and Ohrid cannot be served from the other airport and cannot have been served over the past two seasons. In addition, every new destination introduced at Macedonia's two international airports must be run at least twice per week throughout the year. Applicants are free to introduce additional new services, with the Ministry noting that the winner will be chosen based on the number of new destinations proposed. If two carriers commit to the same number of destinations, the winner will be determined based on the number of frequencies.
The financial support includes a one-time payment of 40.000 euros for each new route launched, as well as nine euros per passengers for each new destination from Skopje for the first year, eight euros during the second year and seven during the third. On the other hand, the carrier will receive thirteen euros per passenger during the first year of operations on a new route out of Ohrid, twelve during the second and eleven euros per traveller in the third year. A similar policy was enforced on two previous occasions, in 2012 and 2015, with Wizz Air being the sole beneficiary. Applications for the latest round of subsidies must by submitted to the Macedonian government by July 27.
Further tender terms and conditions can be found here.
Further tender terms and conditions can be found here.
Seems like the tender is suited for Wizz Air and that they will get the subsidies for a third time.
ReplyDeleteas if you have read the public call carefully ...
DeleteThe subsidies are not too big but it will lead to new routes.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAre the terms the same as the tenders in the past?
ReplyDeleteIf they are Wizz didn't stick to the agreement since their Ohrid-London route went seasonal for a year.
DeleteLondon is not subsiedied by the gov
DeleteSo by the end of the year Skopje and Ohrid should get 2 new routes each. That's great news.
ReplyDeleteI wonder which routes we may see.
DeleteWill we see Ryan applying for the subsidies?
ReplyDeleteHope so. But I think Wizz will win this.
DeleteI guess Ryan could offer from Skopje flights to Dublin, Bucharest, London Stansted, Solun, Trieste and from Ohrid to Burgas (seasonal), Weeze, Bologna, Naples, Pisa, Bari and maybe another German destination.
DeleteIt's great that they are including Ohrid too. So Wizz will open a base there if they win.
ReplyDeleteAgree. I like that OHD will be getting some new year round traffic from these subsidies.
DeleteI'm actually happy that both are included. Not just one or the other.
DeleteOHD is bad news for TIA.
DeleteTirana has to try
DeleteNo airline will instantly open bases in SKP and OHD as they request. So it will be Wizz with one base in SKP already and operations in OHD.
ReplyDeleteThey expect an airline to start 2 new routes by December and it is already July and the winner will be selected in August. They should have given airlines more time.
ReplyDeleteGood news. But I hope we finally see another airline using these subsidies. Wizz Air needs some competition.
ReplyDeleteNorwegian would be a great addition in Skopje.
DeleteReally hoping to see flights from OHD or SKP to SOF.
ReplyDelete+1000
DeleteIt will be Wizz Air again.
ReplyDeleteOf course it will. Varadi didn't come to have meetings with Sugareski for nothing.
Deletewhen?
DeleteReady to place 100 EUR bet on Wizz again.
DeleteGood news but Macedonia must allow new players in the market.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see Transavia start flights to Macedonia.
DeleteNo one will open a base there so as to operate routes that are currently unserved. This has Wizz written all over it.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that they will launch: PRG, WAW, MAD, LIS and maybe even FRA.
PRG and WAW are served already. no money
DeleteYep Warsaw is now served by LOT. Could Lisbon work?
DeleteW6 need some competition, but looks like they will get the call again.
DeleteA route to Lisbon will work pretty well, most of the MKD, Kosovo, Albanians, Serbians really won to visit the country, affordable prices for renting, eating and having nice holidays.
The down part is that Portuguese people barely know were is Macedonia, so not much more PT pax on this flights.
It will work as a night flight, and return to Skopje in the early morning from Lisboa, pretty difficult to get and slot nowadays in LIS the airport is full capacity.
This might be an opportunity for Eurowings again.
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt Eurowings has plans to open a base in Skopje.
DeleteThey can barely cover the bases they have with their equipment and staff numbers.
DeleteFlights to Helsinki could work. There would be a lot of passengers to Kosovo on those flights.
ReplyDeleteNorwegian already flies from Helsinki to Pristina.
DeleteDidn't they downgrade the route to one from two weekly?
DeleteA the same time I hope TAV management will work on bringing more legacies: Lufthansa, Air France, SAS...
ReplyDeleteThese are useless as they are too expensive. We need more and more LCC links to the world.
ReplyDeleteGiven the conditions (the newly launched routes from Skopje and Ohrid cannot be served from the other airport and cannot have been served over the past two seasons) we can immediately exclude Prague and Vienna from the list. I'm also excluding possible UK destinations and Geneva.
ReplyDeleteI'd bet (out of SKP) on Katowice, Bremen, Billund, Baden-Baden, Groningen, Lisbon, Madrid, maybe FRA, some Italian city, and with a remote possibility of launching flights to Helsinki.
As for OHD, I think they'd go with some mix of Italian destinations (mainly to take a share of TIA passengers). CPH and a German city could do well there too.
almost got it right. CPH is a wizz dest. from SKP
Deletehow about AMS ;)
SKP has Hahn aleady.
DeleteBRE is too close to HAM
Great. I'm happy that the tender will last just for a month and that we will see the benefits of it very soon.
ReplyDeleteOhrid airport before Air Serbia stopped flights:
ReplyDelete- https://ibb.co/jN5hRd
- https://ibb.co/chfhRd
- https://ibb.co/mgd8zy
Can't wqit to see which routes will be launched.
ReplyDeleteWith all these new routes Macedonian airports will be pushing towards 3 million passengers.
ReplyDeleteI expect that those new routes will be Skopje - Sarajevo via Podgorica and Skopje - Sofia. Time will tell ��
ReplyDeleteExcellent idea, which I fully support. However airlines need to take steps to stop price gouging from third party resellers, which is especially the case at Ohrid airport. Some MLH-OHD and LTN-OHD flights are 300€ one way on the wizz air website, whilst third parties are selling 50-100€ tickets in Macedonia.
ReplyDeleteI hope for SKP-MAD and SKP-LIS.
ReplyDeleteFrom OHD I suppose CPH and some german and italian destinations.
CPH is served from Skopje so under tender conditions they can't start it.
DeleteIf you can get and slot in LIS.....
DeleteIs LIS that slot restricted?
DeleteYes, LIS is very full.
DeleteIf Wizz Air, potential routes from Skopje could be SKP-MAD, SKP-LIS, SKP-OTP, SKP-ATH, SKP-DUB, SKP-MAN.
ReplyDeleteOhrid: OHD-SOF/VAR (probably best seasonal though), OHD-BLQ/GOA/VRN/TRN, OHD-BAR/NAP (both to compete with Tirana), OHD-DUS, OHD-FKB.
OHD
ReplyDeleteNL:AMS (RTM)
NL/D/B:MST
SWE:AGH
GER: every W6 destination is covered in Skopje,maybe they should try BRE which is also near Netherlands, or maybe some other airline will surprise with something like Brno
ITA:VRN/TRN
BTW, they could've tried different approach like Pegasus (OHD-SAW) Transavia from RTM; to SKP, Norvegian - HEL, Eurowings (DUS, MUC), Easyjet (GVA, OPO), Ryanair (KRK, BRQ, ATH), Pobeda (VKO), Volotea (FLR) etc.Maybe too much optimistic but none was before W6.
SKP-SOF daily, SKP-VAR 2x, SKP-LIS 2x, SKP-OTP 2\3x, SKP-MAD 2x.
ReplyDeleteOHD-EIN 2x, OH-CHP daily (seaonal), OHD-BUD 2x, OHD-OTP daily (seasonal), OHD-SOF daily (seasonal),
A low cost airline that doesn't offer transfer passengers would likely struggle with SKP-SOF, given it is only 4 hours by bus and even quicker with car.
DeleteIt is 4 hours with car, not with Bus. Also, you need to go to SOF to see the amount of cars with Macedonian plates.
DeleteI agree that Sofia is one of the options. Also Sarajevo via Podgorica could be the other destination.
Delete