China's Hainan Airlines has discontinued the sale of its two weekly flights between Beijing and Belgrade via Prague as of late November, indicating the route's imminent suspension. However, it is yet to remove the flights from Global Distribution Systems. According to the "Airlineroute" portal, Hainan Airlines' last flight to Belgrade is currently scheduled to operate on November 23, after which ticket sales have been suspended. It comes just over a year since the route's launch in September 2017. In a short response, the airline told EX-YU Aviation News it "has no answer at this moment" concerning the route's fate but would follow up on the inquiry. Flights between Beijing and Belgrade via Prague operate with the 292-seat Airbus A330-300 aircraft. The airline has fifth freedom rights on the Prague - Belgrade - Prague sectors, allowing it to also sell tickets between the two cities.
Hainan Airlines recently said the majority of its bookings to Belgrade were made by Chinese tourists, who can travel to Serbia visa free. During the first three quarters, 77.543 Chinese nationals visited the country, representing an increase of 103.2% on the same period last year. As a result, Chinese visitors were the third most common in Serbia, behind only those from Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Chinese carrier previously noted it would consider upping frequencies on its flights to Belgrade or introducing nonstop flights to the city, depending on demand. Furthermore, the airline concluded a codeshare agreement with Air Serbia two months ago, which has seen it place its flight numbers and designator code onto its Serbian counterpart's service between Belgrade and Skopje, while in return, Air Serbia codeshares on Hainan's flights from Belgrade to Beijing. Previously, Serbian officials said they were in talks with Hainan Airlines over modifying the service in order for it to operate with the routing Beijing - Belgrade - Sarajevo. The Chinese Ambassador to Serbia also said negotiations were under way for the introduction of flights between Shanghai and Belgrade.
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| Hainan Airlines' sales office at Belgrade Airport |
Hainan Airlines is considered to be one of China's best carriers and has been consistently ranked as one of the top ten best airlines in the world. Subsidiaries of Hainan's parent company, the HNA Group, which is involved in aviation, real estate, financial services, tourism, logistics, and other industries, placed a bid, as part of a consortium, for the 25-year concession of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport last year, however, pulled out in the final stages. The Group has been struggling with debt of 95 billion US dollars and has been selling off both its Chinese and international assets in order to balance its books.
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Well, that was a short intermezzo and a pretty sudden plug in the middle of the winter timetable. But it was pretty obvious this would not work from the beginning, as many here were claiming and dreaming of further and non stop destinations to China. Maybe Air Serbia will be forced to fly the route now for some not to lose their faces.
This is an opportunity for Air Serbia to start flights to Beijing (and knowing how the thing works, it could be a part of an overalls agreement).
BEG is routed via FCO.
Seems not enough to operate the route. Hopefully BEG will be back for SUTT 2019
Previous examples: TP, BT, U6, IR, QB, W5 and probably much more.
This just shows how solid the position of JU is in the airport and high reliance on it.
Anyway, thank you for the short ride, HU and hasta la vista.
They fly Chengdu - Prague - Zurich. They added the Zurich tag when Hainan added Belgrade.
Btw IR requested to resume flights if you didn't know.
We were discussing only recently that the route was doing so good and that Belgrade had become a hot destination for Chinese tourists and businesses that the flight would become direct.
What a let down.
Also the Chinese government has ordered companies and individuals to reduce spending abroad.
So weaker destinations like BEG get cut first.
Anyhow, maybe we get a direct line sometime in the future. The amount of investment from China has increased significantly this year. They just bought gold mine, copper mine, refinery etc. We will see.
the airline told EX-YU Aviation News it "has no answer at this moment" concerning the route's fate but would follow up on the inquiry.
Now it is obvious that there are not so many Chinese tourists visiting Serbia. The buble has burst.
Also Hainan via Prague was not competitive compared with SU, TK, QR...
Croatia will have 250.000 Chinese tourists in 2018. but still no direct line.
Iran Air - stop flying
Hainan - stop flying
Now, Belgrade has just 2 flights per week to New York on most of winter (few more flights during two weeks around New Year), and 3-6 pw in summer.
Zagreb here really win long-haul
Air Canada Rouge one more flight from 4 to 5 pw
Emirates 7 pw
Air Transat 2 pw and one of those to Montreal from next year
Koran 3 pw nonstop
That is 17 long-haul flights pw in summer
+ Air Transat to Split 1pw
+ American to Dubrovnik 3pw
Also none of Air Transat's flights are from Montreal next year.
Best to check your info again.
So would it be strange that for 250.000 Chinese tourists (2018) what will be at least 300.000 in 2019 they would open some Croatian routes? And Zagreb is most realistic option.
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/10/iran-air-plans-belgrade-resumption-in.html
HNA also pulled out of Plovdiv after winning the concession.
How much money did Croatia or certain Croatian funds pay for these airlines to operate to your country?
But at the same time I am now happy about all those bad people who are happy when "some other's" airport sees some small reduction, and present it as huge downgrade, as for example Emirates in ZAG this winter. Maybe this will teach them a lesson not to be happy when bad things happen to others as the same can always happen to you, too. Cheers!
KE flies 1 route during the winter through ZRH
EK flies 1 route seasonally
AC flies 1 route seasonally
TS flies 1 route seasonally
So 8 million for 5 seasonal routes = 1,6 million per route to go to foreign countries
JU case 20 million for year round 40 routes = 0,5 million per route to stay in Serbia
I really wonder what is better
They signed code share with JU, Chinese ambassador said the second route to China will be open from Belgrade, number of tourists is growing, business ties are stronger, no visa regime...
We might expect direct line to BEG
1,6 million for intercontinental route for sure is better option than 0,5 for average 1,5 hours flight inside Europe and just one route to New York.
BEG needs to entirely dedicate itself to transform itself as a regional player and think regional as it is now covering most Balkan cities, it can start to focus on Caucasus, CIS countries, Iberian peninsula.
So many cities need to be connected before Beijing>>>>>>
Astana, Baku, Yerevan, Tbilisi, St. Peterburg, Almaty, Perm, Lisbon, Madrid, Mallorca (summer), Krakow, Batumi (summer), Riga, Ankara and such with no competition.
Forget about long-haul, leave it to the big boys from Lufti, Air France/KLM, LOT, Turkish, etc.
Air Transat will open Montreal-Zagreb route. This year they had some flights as tasting market, next season they will have regular flights to Montreal.
They pay much less than Serbia to Air Serbia for JFK and to Hainan.
And I consider Cyprus Northern Europe. Prove me wrong :)
@Ex-Yu aviation, please, explain me how come Chinese are third?
"During the first three quarters, 77.543 Chinese nationals visited the country, representing an increase of 103.2% on the same period last year. As a result, Chinese visitors were the third most common in Serbia, behind only those from Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina."
That's like saying 'TK announces four more flights and a widebody to BEG' before they get the permit for those.
By whom?
"It is politically"
How so? They are classified as a developed country and have a GDP per capita that most Eastern European countries could only wish for.
"Geographically however its more Central Europe"
Geographically, it's smack in the middle of Central Europe.
Who said I dislike it? Even with Hainan flights it would have more. Maybe fix your tone a bit. Neither did I start comparing nor did I say there were less flights. It is your countryman that started comparing on his own. Needed an ego boost for some reason, obviously.
Right
Are you seriously questioning numbers by the statistical office on the number of visitors? You think they purposely lower the number of Macedonian and Bulgarian tourists in Serbia. lol.
--- but the highest charges among EU airports are deterring LCCs and others from flying to ZAG. Wonder what direction the wind will be blowing in the next artice on a different story...
But if you wish to think it is better deal for Croatia, I have nothing against
But once again, why you ignore the fact that Serbia said most of those 20 million is help for New York route. One and only New York route. Not 5 of them with 21 flights per week, but one whit 5 flights per week.
No, they are not all year-round, but Korean Air is 3 weekly year-round, the same or in some periods even more than winter JU BEG-JFK. Still, I believe it's better to have 21 in summer and 3 in winter compared to 6 in summer and 3 in winter. In addition to that I believe Croatia has much more potential for long haul flights. Am I right we shall see soon.
@An.12.39
I was speaking about numbers in Croatia and Serbia, not ZAG and BEG. And here we go again, Croatia has 4 million more than Serbia. I don't know where your frustrations come from to speak about general BEG numbers when we discuss other stuff here. Btw. BEG is the BIGGEST and most important airport in ex-yu, it has always been and will probably always be. I never denied it, and I have absolutely no problems with it. But I believe some people have problem with denial of the facts that Croatia is more interesting for carriers from distant markets than Serbia. As simple as that.
Now suddenly all of dear neighbours rememberd to count them.
I have not seen that article you are talking about. Can you please send the link?
"Furthermore, the state provided a twenty million euro subsidy, which is half of what the company used to receive from its majority shareholder, although the carrier was also granted twelve million euros for the "development of tourism". The Serbian Finance Minister, Siniša Mali, has said that the payment credited under tourism development is primarily for the support of the carrier's long haul service to New York. "As part of our tourism development strategy until 2025, the Serbian government has decided to extend its support to whatever contributes to tourism growth. In this case, it is flights to North America. Without that support there would be no service to the US. However, Air Serbia's financial performance would remain unchanged", Mr Mali said recently."
So, Pssssssst! 12 million for tourist development + part of those 20 million for one route to JFK with average of 5 flights pw in top season and 3 flights pw in winter, compare to 21 flights in top season + 3 flights per week in winter fof JUST 8 million!
Mach and April
ZAG 7
BEG 3
May
ZAG 9
BEG 5
Jun
ZAG 14
BEG 8
July and August
ZAG 13
BEG 14
Septmeber and October
ZAG 16
BEG 7
November
ZAG 10
BEG 5
December and all winter
ZAG 3
BEG 3 (2 weeks 4, most of winter 2)
Well done. At least no LHR slots need to be sold.
The necessity to belittle anything relating to Serbia here is stagerring. I even remember when that Croatian stats guy wrote how Belgrade Airport is making up its passenger numbers because he was unhappy with the growth. Crazy.
China Eastern might be more likely airline that will start flights to Zagreb, it'll be direct and it'll happen in 2020, not sooner. Korean Air has excellent loads on Zagreb flights, in high 90s. ANA and few Chinese carriers are taking notice. Emirates also had good numbers on flights to Zagreb, an average loads above 90%.
Visitor numbers so far this year.
Non European visitors 2018/1-9:
USA - 518.233
S. Korea - 316.494
Australia - 226.007
China - 173.732
Canada - 158.956
Japan - 128.163
Taiwan - 82.448
Brazil - 59.940
India - 57.298
Argentina - 48.872
Singapore - 41.723
New Zealand - 40.216
Malaysia - 37.423
Hong Kong - 28.054
Thailand - 24.160
South Africa - 23.391
Mexico - 15.528
UAE/Qatar/Kuwait - 22 000
Chile - 12.275
Indonesia: 11.012
I find it hard to believe that JU is not making good money during the summer time with the A330, being sent to JFK 6 p/w during the peak summer months (lets say for 3 months). Then there is periods of 5 p/w, 4 p/w, and for 2-3 months maximum 2 p/w. As I said, I don't believe that the A330 is making JU money overall, however I'm sure that during the summer they earn enough to handle some of the lower earnings from the slower winter season, and don't believe that 20 million is spent on JFK.
JU keeps on transforming itself every several months and I believe that is where these millions in losses is coming from. Reconfiguring newly configured aircraft is not cheap, and they reconfigured 10 Airbuses! wifi installation was not free, lounge set up was not free, neither was the transfer of their reservations system free either. Add onto expensive aircraft leases, expensive Etihad "know how", need I say more?
Another A330 could easily do 3 p/w YYZ and 2-3 p/w PVG. Ties with China are growing, tourism from China are growing in large numbers, business is growing between the 2, the question is whether JU could pull it off. It wouldn't be the worst idea.
This may be only the start of a wave of cancellations and bankruptcies in Europe in the next 6 months.
As in why would someone fly with them via Prague when they can have faster flights and more flexibility with someone else?
In September there were 12.552 or +197% more than last year.
In other words, this year Serbia will have between 105.000 and 120.000 Chinese tourists. As mentioned someone earlier, there are far more tourists than Hainan offered seats meaning they were not the primary carrier for them but SU, TK and QR were.
Back in 2015 both countries were more or less tied:
Bulgaria: 7.951.752
Croatia: 7.255.234
2017:
Bulgaria: 11.535.096
Croatia: 9.626.021
On top of that Bulgaria isn't advertizing itself as much as Croatia is nor does it have seasonal intercontinental routes not to mention that EK doesn't fly there. So what if they have seven million people? Population has very little to do with tourism stimulation. You have Rhodes with 115.000 people but it's airport handled 5.3 million passengers last year.
Albania is now heavily promoting itself in tourism and even its numbers are rapidly growing despite having TGD next door and OHD nearby. In the first nine months of the year they had 2.291.883 passengers, very close to 2.569.296 ZAG handled.
So you see, when you look at numbers from a different perspective things aren't as impressive.
massive difference between Croatia and Bulgaria is, LCCs. Sofia's air traffic is dominated by LCCs, in Croatia LCCs are present but they constitute small segment of overall traffic. In Zagreb it is less than 5%, in Split, Dubrovnik it is less than 50%, in Bulgaria this percentage is nearly 65%.
Sofia's rapid growth in past few years, well since 2008, is driven by LCCs, Sofia will handle around 7 million passengers this year, 65% of that traffic due to LCCs, Wizz air and Ryan air in particular. if we had so many LCCs in Zagreb, you'd see massive jump in traffic, over night, Zagreb would hit 5 million pax in 2020 and over 10 million by 2025.
Reducing the costs for LCCs so they can fly out of Zagreb would be unfair to other carriers who are generating traffic for the airport and pay their fees and taxes.
Coast might have 50% LCC but most other flights are operated by charter airlines, not legacies.
Zbog ogromnog novca koji ulaze VINCI, sve sumlje i pesimizam padaju u vodu. Jedno je izvesno. Razvoj i uvecanje Beogradskog vazdusnog cvora. Ostalo su blogovske price...
Pozdrav iz toplog Sidneja, Rodney pored WSA na Badjeri Kriku.
@Anon 7:44, they’re not excuses, what is there to excuse anyways? They are explanations and responses given to another comment which said that Bulgaria is light years ahead.
Also, while population size may not affect inbound tourism traffic it sure does affect overall air traffic. You don’t know how much of 11.5 million of Bulgaria’s passengers are tourists, nor do you know how much of Croatia’s 9.6 million passengers are inbound tourists. What we can assume, based on the sizes of two countries, socio-economic similarities and, yes, their populations is that Bulgaria surely has more domestic and outbound tourist passengers than Croatia.
Actually Norwegian is doing excellent in Zagreb, but they only offer two destinations Stockholm and Copenhagen, in fact Norwegian also cancelled Belgrade and now only flies to Copenhagen, like in Zagreb.
Problem isn't the passengers, it is the airline, offer of destinations. Many Croats go to Budapest, Vienna, Ljubljana and Venice to get cheap flights. Something like 3 million pax is lost every year in Zagreb region due to no LCCs with good number of destinations.
When Monarch flew to Zagreb they had load factor above 80% year round, London Gatwick was over 90%. they went bust....
It is all relative, who flies and what destinations. German Wings is very busy in Zagreb, serving Stuttgart, Cologne, Berlin, Hamburg and Dusseldorf, Cologne 69000 pax last year, out of Zagreb, Stuttgart was around 50k and so on.
Problem is not the customers but the airlines and destinations on offer. There are now over 170 000 Croats in EU, and over 20 000 EU nationals in Zagreb, with unemployment in Croatia at all time low, @8.4% and falling, there'll be more EU nationals coming to work in Zagreb, especially from Spain, France, Italy and Portugal, where high unemployment pushes many to work in other EU member states.
Things are moving in the right direction we just need more LCCs ...
Norwegian has NOT cancelled anything in Belgrade. It flies year round from Oslo and Stockholm. In fact this winter it has even increased frequencies while it has completely left Zagreb. Also Norwegian has never flown from Copenhagen to Belgrade. It always flew from Oslo year round and Stockholm seasonally but now flies year round from both destinations.