NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia has scheduled and begun ticket sales for the nine new routes it will launch this summer season. Services from Belgrade to Helsinki, Krasnodar and Kiev will operate three times per week, while flights to Madrid, Barcelona, Nice, Zadar, Rijeka and Cairo will run twice weekly. With exception to the Croatian additions to its network, which will be operated by the ATR72 turboprop aircraft, the airline will utilise the Airbus A319 jet on its remaining new destinations.
| Route | Launch date |
|---|---|
| Belgrade - Helsinki | JUN 03 |
| Belgrade - Krasnodar | JUN 03 |
| Belgrade - Cairo | JUN 04 |
| Belgrade - Kiev | JUN 04 |
| Belgrade - Barcelona | JUN 04 |
| Belgrade - Rijeka | JUN 04 |
| Belgrade - Madrid | JUN 05 |
| Belgrade - Nice | JUN 06 |
| Belgrade - Zadar | JUN 21 |
Great job Belgrad.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that BCN and CAI will survive this in the long term.... I am not really convinced of an airline opening so many new destinations at once (20% increase of their destination network), rather than opening 1 to 3 and then work them up year over year fm 2 weekly to more weekly flights. In the long term this is more sustainable. But lets wait and see. JP opened fm Nov 2017-May 2018 8 new destinations, 1 is still alive, the rest is history. Judging this, I am wondering how professional route analysis are done?
ReplyDeleteAnyway good luck to JU, in 12 months we should know more
Aerodromi obicno daju popuste na dve godine za novootvorene rute tako da imaju vremena da ih razrade.
DeleteI had similiar opinion especially about HEL.
DeleteIn the first wave it should have been
BCN
CAI
ZAD seasonally
KBP
NCE will probably survive as a summer route.
DeleteI think JU's operations are far more stable than Adria's. I think HEL will do well and so will KRR where both have really high fares to the markets JU plans on serving. VY did well in BEG and I sure JU will take most of their passengers.
DeleteZAD in the first wave ahead of KRR? You do realize KRR handled 3.5 million which would make it the second busiest airport if it were in ex-YU. JU needs to get transfer passengers, not another questionable regional route at an airport thta barely grew in 2018.
DeleteIf JU secures more Iberian/Maghreb, Latin American and Northern American destinations with Air Europa, then Madrid will definitely survive the winter.
DeleteI have my doubts about Barcelona. Flights are even reduced from/to Bucharest let alone Belgrade. The early morning departure is challenging.
KRR and CAI will definitely work.
Big doubts about HEL, too. This is an expensive airport and usually demand is very punctual.
Maybe we might see some Macedonian/Albanian gasto traffic.
BCN has very little frequencies from BEG, VY flies this route seasonally three times per week. JU is adding two flights so they are not dumping capacity. Also JU will get feed for BCN.
DeleteHEL has fantastic connections to all of Balkans and their prices are quite competitive. I think it will do well.
What impresses me the most about this is the amount of year-round destinations!!
Yes, ZAD ahead of KRR.
DeleteDo not forget that ZAD is ex-yu airport and that in that area lives or lived many Serbs who migrated to Serbia.
From the other side despite all circumstances Croatian sea side is very popular in Serbia. Some go there because of nostalgy, some because of family connnections, some because of some other reasons.
From the other side KRR has 3,5 million passengers (terrible terminal!) but as HEL it could be nothing but destination for tranfers. We already saw BUD and WAW which are much bigger than KRR who failed in JU network.
Sure, in KRR there is less competition than in BUD or WAW but they still have whole SU network as well as OS flights.
It is very well known that from financial side direct flights always bring more money than transfer flights. Have a look BEG-HEL-BEG min price is 189 EUR, the same as HEL-TLV-HEL.
Therefore surely ZAD before KRR
Croatia is not that popular with Serbian holidaymakers. Very few go there and JU flies to places like DBV, SPU and PUY for transfer passengers. More Serbs go to Turkey or Egypt than they got o Croatia. So HRG or AYT would make more sense than ZAD.
DeleteYes BUD and WAW failed but places like SOF or BEY didn't which shows that transfer passengers can be profitable. After all look at EK or FI.
So I think KRR and HEL should go before ZAD. Also what has KRR's terminal got to do with anything? JU flies to some pretty bad airports, look at TXL, BNX, SJJ, MXP... they can't be much worse than KRR.
I understand your reasons, but I disagree that Croatia is not popular with Serbian holidaymakers. There are so many direct connections from all Europe to Croatian seaside (have a look on SPU numbers in July and August 2018) that JU woould not have a lot of interest flying there mostly for transfer passengers.
DeleteSerbs which go as holidaymakers to Turkey or Egypt already have charters so that area has been already covered.
KRR terminal was mentioned as it has really negative comments of the passengers (check google) and surely can't be argument for flying to KRR as tourist or city break destination. For example I know people who said they would never fly to BOD again due to the terminal Billi terminal.
Yes, BEY and SOF did not fail (actually BEY was just taken over from Jat Airways as proven destination and only SOF was new Air Serbia transfer destination), but VAR did. And with ZAG JU is also mostly struggling.
And once again JU can earn much more money charging BEG-ZAD-BEG for 150 EUR on ATR72 than KRR-BEG-HEL-BEG-KRR on A319/320 for let's say 200 EUR
After all they need to look at the financial side as well.
So by that logic Berlin should be struggling to attract passengers because of a really horrible terminal? Also JU discontinued BEY in 2005, JU resumed it in 2014. You can't really say they took over as it has a decade between the two.
DeleteAlso, we have to see how many p2p they get to ZAD. It's not far by bus/car where you can take a lot more luggage.
@Nebojsa Popovic - Don't be an idiot. I've been to KRR. The terminal is new, privatised and managed by some German company. Bad comments were about the old terminal which is no longer functional and that is irrelevant anyway since most of you have never set foot in Krasnodar or Southern Russia.
DeleteFYI the overall Google rating of KRR airport matches the Zagreb one very closely. I don't see you worried about JU flying there.
Your language you can keep for yourself. It brings no single argument to your post, but contraty, it speaks enough about your frustration.
DeleteI was very clear when I said google users gave terrible rating to KRR terminal and many of them are only 1 or 2 months old. So your have right to have your own opinion, but other people have it as well. And there are a lot of them who have much different opinion than you.
Those reports on KRR are nothing but #fakenews
DeleteMost of those people have never been to KRR so this is speculation at best. Coming from Yugos who'll never even fly there. On the subject of a line meant mainly for Russians i.e locals.
DeleteAs far as I can tell, airport appeal and destination demand hardly correlate in O&D. You ain't visiting a terminal but a destination. Many airlines fly to KRR including Austrian and FlyDubai.
As per my experience the airport is a bit above average, yet there are far worse with higher demand etc.
Overall Google score of KRR is 3.1. That is in the league of Zagreb and Budapest and far ahead many popular LCC airports.
DeleteOnly Yugos use google
DeleteWell, this was funny :-)))
Shouldn't Zadar flight be 242/243? Those are midday flights.
ReplyDeleteWhy on Earth is the BEG-BCN schedule almost similar to the VY one???
ReplyDeleteOh dear, the BCN timings are extremely painful:
BEG-BCN every Saturday
VY1289 02:15 04:55
JU580 06:45 09:25
Same day. Interval: 4 hours
And every Tuesday:
JU 584 17:00 19:40
VY 1287 22:20 01:00
Same day. Interval: 5 hours
And to make things worse. VY has a third flight every Monday morning:
VY1289 01:30 04:10
The only "normal time" is the JU584.
So basically if a Serbian decides to visit Barcelona, it would be best to catch the early Saturday morning flight and catch the Tuesday evening flight back. Yet again 5 days are recommended to stay in Barcelona.
On the other hand, if a Spanish decides to visit Belgrade, they need to catch the Saturday morning BEG-BCN flight and return on Tuesday afternoon.
So, this means that JU intentionally launched those flights (better timings that for sure) to kick VY.
These are good times for people going on a weekend break. Especially from Belgrade to Barcelona :)
DeleteI am happy JU is attacking VY in BCN! They need to be taught a lesson for taking the Serbian market for granted. Let's see if they respond. I think a 06.45 departure is quite ok, it's standard in Europe for most flights. Imagine the horror of taking off at 02.15 and then landing in BCN at 04.55! Or even worse... at 04.10!
DeleteMaybe it was better to use mid term something like
DeleteBEG - BCN 12:00 -14:40
BCN - BEG 15:20-17:40.
They have lot of capacity in mid term specially with A319 and with only 2 times frequency they will get little transfer passenger and yield will be very low as you have lot of flights from region.
In this case they would pick up 90% P2P passengers.
For p2p getting early in BCN is better than 14.40 because they have to get that day off from work so they would want to get a whole day in the city. Also so what if there are a lot of fligths to the region. BEY has many flights to Europe yet JU manages to survive.
DeleteThe worst one is the the ungodly VY departure on Sunday-Monday at 01:30 and arriving Barcelona at 04:10. Even if you have a transfer, you would stay at least 2-3 hours more to catch a flight to mainland Spain or the Canary/Balearic Islands. because most flights depart Barcelona at 06:00 onwards.
DeleteThis time, it's indeed bad news for VY :)
Example: 22.06.2019
BEG-BCN-BEG
JU: 117€ return
VY: 150€ return (including 10kg hand luggage)
Yet again, I would chose JU definitely mainly because of the much better schedule.
JU pricing is so much better now that EY is no longer in charge of it.
DeleteVueling has more seats on the A320 than JU, 174vs180. Their seat pitch is pretty bad, 29. JU has 30 and I think 32 in front where business class is.
DeleteJU will operate to BCN using A319 and not A320.
DeleteVY is also known for its notorious delays. It is one of the most unpunctual airlines in Europe. They had a huge scandal in 2016 with many cancellations.
JU does not have punctuality issues as most of its flights leave on time.
JU is considered somehow legacy while VY is pure LCC.
I mentioned A320 because that's what they send to BEG. I made a comparison with JU to show to cramped and horrible they are.
DeleteYes, they are. I flew with them in various occasions. Pretty average, nothing that special.
DeleteTheir newer Airbuses with the sharklets are quite nicer though. The 321 sharklets too.
Either way, they will either change their schedule or ditch Belgrade in 2020.
Who knows maybe they decide to strike back by changing the schedule and by adding a fourth weekly flight.
Delete...or W6 steps in and joins the battlefield ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
DeleteThat would be interesting but I don't think Wizz Air will do it. They still haven't responded to easyJet's BEG-BSL flights. Their BEG operations seem to be on autopilot.
DeleteBCN-BEG is even closer:
DeleteVY 19.10-21.40
JU 20.25-22.55
Overall JU has a much better schedule.
Can someone post a complete list of new frequencies to BEG with these JU ones. Must be quite a lot.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy a lot of these comments that BUD "failed". It didn't. I used to be on that route often, and the load factor was decent. The problem for JU was that it was mainly used by P2P passengers (because the train connection is so bad; and in summer you can spend quite some time at the border) and therefore it just wasn't making them enough money.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed a failure. BUD currently is extremely well connected and with the current traffic figures it might even reach PRG and WAW levels.
Delete95% of the JU routes were already available from BUD, so not sure why a Hungarian would chose to head southwards and then back northwards.
BUD is practically connected to all European countries with some exceptions.
BUD is also not only about W6 but much more airlines.
Anon 13.10
DeleteYou obviously don't know what you are talking about. BUD was never introduced to feed the western European market, it was there to offer connections to the Balkans and the Middle East. There was zero O&D because Etihad put €169 as a return fare for locals.
BUD is connected to almost all Balkan capitals and you know it.
DeleteIn case you did, I will refresh your memory a bit. Now it's cold and sometimes we tend to forget:
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2016/05/wizz-air-bids-for-new-ex-yu-routes-from.html
BUD is also already connected to CAI, SSH, HRG, DXB, TLV, LCA, PFO, DOH and so on.
So what if they are connected? You are on an aviation portal so you should be more familiar with aviation business. Serbia is connected with most European cities yet Lufthansa, LOT, Austrian Airlines... still fly to Belgrade and carry many transfers to cities with non-stop flights from BEG.
DeleteObviously it's not your day. Please, pay attention.
DeleteLuke's words:
The problem for JU was that it was mainly used by P2P passengers (because the train connection is so bad; and in summer you can spend quite some time at the border) and therefore it just wasn't making them enough money.
Your words:
There was zero O&D because Etihad put €169 as a return fare for locals.
BEG-BUD was an unsuccessful and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Live with it.
It was unsuccessful in the sense that JU clearly wanted to run it to feed other routes; but it just got used as P2P. I was living in Hungary at the time, a lot of companies have their regional headquarters there and often that includes the markets for Serbia/Balkans. Having that plane connection was absolutely ideal for them and so they bought the tickets up. I guess it's one of those rare occasions when something is financially unsuccessful but actually has decent passenger numbers (similar to when Virgin Little Red ran Manchester > LHR shuttles, more people booked it as one way flights than to connect on to Virgin services so it wasn't worth them continuing).
DeleteThe fact that Belavia bother to still sell tickets between the 2 destinations shows that there is some demand for it. It just wasn't the type of demand JU were looking for.
Actually at the time BUD had horrible connections to the former Yugoslavia. Only subsequently did the government fund the routes to Sarajevo, Podgorica, Skopje, Pristina etc. There's still no connection to Zagreb. At the time of the YU flights there was no direct connection to SOF, and I used that quite a lot as did a fair size of other passengers. The same as BUC as JU came up cheaper than TAROM.
IN case someone is interested;: from February 1st 2019 (and at least till the end of 2019) daily train connections between Budapest and Beograd are reduced from 3 to 1. They are improving the railway network in Serbia.
DeleteBEG-BUD was heavily relying on transfer passengers, there were barely any point to point. Morning flight was disastrous, return to BEG and then the afternoon flight to BUD did ok. BUD started to suffer the moment JU started butchering its network, for example connection with LCA was lost which was a great loss as there were always quite a few transfers.
DeleteWhot aboute flights to Bwk where Agency will take 70 place for 1flight?
ReplyDeleteWith SPU and ZAD flights there is no need for BWK. There will be a total of 10 weekly flights, 6 on JU to SPU, 2 on OU to SPU and 2 on JU to ZAD. That said, this goes to show how pathetic OU is on the Croatia-Serbia market.
DeleteThis is huge! If they manage to survive summer season without too many cancelation or delays, then we all can only say well done Air Serbia!
ReplyDeleteTrue, nobody wants the JP scenario tbh. JU is already struggling with negative reviews on Internet, let alone if people get their flights cancelled. Being on a tight fleet is extreme. But at least you have the Boeings as a reserve.
DeleteWhy are you being dramatic? They survived last summer without any major delays, why should this summer be any different?
DeleteIs there any chance for a connection at KRR to Sochi/Adler? That's a great destination for winter sports (and summer too, to a lesser degree) that's affordable but gets few foreign visitors because most need visa requirements--except Serbs.
ReplyDeleteYou all forget this is more for Russians traveling to Europe.
DeleteAir Serbia already started advertizing in Cyprus. We got an e-mail today with promo fares to Barcelona for €139, Nice for €219, Kiev for €139...
ReplyDeleteThey have already a promo for round-trip ex Ljubljana, valid for June only and hand carry only: Madrid 123eu, Kijev 143eu, Helsinki 141eu, Cairo 224eu (check in baggage included) and Krasnodar 248 (check in baggage included).
DeleteMadrid? Connecting times must be long though.
Delete3.15h,bice naj duza evropska ruta AS.
DeleteI can't find a schedule for new long haul destinations. Earlier this month I read on this blog that VINCI will specifically enable Air Serbia to offer new long haul routes. It looks like they are enabling only short haul, did VINCI already change their tune?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should wait a little bit. And it's not Vinci that launches new routes (airports don't do that), it's airlines. But for now you can find the schedule for nine, yes NINE new routes being launched by this airline this summer.
DeleteVINCI doesn't launch routes but they said directly they would enable JU to offer long haul three weeks ago:
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/01/vinci-etihad-to-work-to-expand-air.html
Nine, yes NINE shorthaul routes are fanastic, but what happened to that statement from VINCI?
Nothing happened to their statement. Vinci is here for 25 years and they took the airport over 24 days ago. Get real.
DeleteRoutes like Cairo, Krasnodar, Kiev... can all be used to boost any future long-haul routes.
DeleteWhat i hope for the most is that this will be the end of the Yugo-nostalgia and Balkan-focus at JU. It was the last time to rebalance their networks towards new realities West and East and South.
DeleteHopefully this trend will continue.
ZAD finally. This can be year round route, given the diaspora. People will pay for 1hr flight vs 10hr bus ride.
ReplyDeletemy2cents
Air Serbia is offering very interesting prices for Passengers flying from BCN to other JU destionations. So, for example you may buy BCN-SVO via BEG in Economy Classic for around 17.000 RSD (taxes included). I did research the reservation system and for dates 25/06-05/07 the price for BEG-SVO was 45.000 RSD.
ReplyDelete