Nice to see another new service for BEG and more frequencies being added.

It's good that they sell tickets normally as well, online.

28,000 passengers is not bad for a relatively unknown airline.

I think that makes it 11 new routes for this summer.

If you can find a seat. In January me and my girlfriend wanted to go. They had only 1 seat on the outbound and 2 on the inbound but obviously we needed 2 tickets both ways. I guess tour operators buy the majority of the seats.

I wonder how many people in total flew from BEG to Egypt in 2018.

Not bad about the codeshare with Air Serbia. Air Cairo flies some domestic routes from CAI like Aswan, Luxor, Sharm, Hurghada. Could be really beneficial for JU.

Damn, airlines keep increasing and announcing new flights to Belgrade ... this summer will be crazy

And something like 40 extra frequencies or more.

JU has more to gain than Air Cairo here.

I'm surprised Egypt Air didn't consider introducing scheduled flights from CAI to BEG. Too late now.

I always found it interesting how Air Cairo and Tunis Air fly to BEG year round on what are esentially summer holiday routes.

Nice good luck to them. So that will be three destinations from Egypt in total with scheduled flights to BEG.

Together with new JU routes it would be almost 70 new weekly frequencies from BEG this summer

I would say probably over 100,000 considering Almasria operated the whole summer with A330s and Air Serbia also flew to Hurghada.

A lot of people during winter months is seeking to go somewhere where climate is nicer and Northern Africa have perfect climate and also is close and cheap.

That is the reason why Egypt and Tunis have year round flights to Belgrade.

It's cheaper to spend 2 weeks in Sharm or Tunis in winter then stay at home in Belgrade. I'm serious, whole hotel package and air fare included.

People go at winter there too. It is warm & sunny, it is cheap....sometimes cheaper than staying in Belgrade :)

Is this the one you announce from Nis just month a ago ex-yu? :)
This shows exactly how good idea was them to take over Nis Airport!
Well done guys!

That's 10 extra daily flights! :O
On top of that, JU is supposed to operate 10% more charter flights than last year.

Maybe you should read the article.

Egypt Air could use Egypt Air Express to fly to Belgrade.

Well Belgrade is obviously the bigger market and it stimulates more demand. Also, we are still in February, there is still time to announce Nis flights. Maybe there was no demand?

BEG could easily handle 6.2 million next year.

There are some great deals for Egypt at the Belgrade tourism fair. I am sure this is what stimulated extra demand. Egypt was always extremely popular with Serbs. I remember even 15 years ago JU used to operate B727 to Egypt, sometimes even two at the same time.

I don't see the point now with JU starting flights.

Great news. Good to see more and more flights in the pipeline for BEG.

Cairo is the only new intercontinental service for Air Serbia. What happened to expected destinations in North America and Asia, PEK and YYZ in particular?

Well maybe they did the economics of it and decided against it this year. The Canadian ambassador said the YYZ flight would either launch this year or next but that 2020 was more likely.

Truth! Here is the article that says: Niš Airport secures Egypt flights from May 2019 with Air Cairo pictured!
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/12/nis-airport-secures-egypt-flights-from.html

Do Egyptians need visa to enter Serbia?

It says in this very article you are commenting on (which you obviously haven't even read) the following "The airline is also planning to introduce services to Niš".

Why not ORD and PEK instead?

These flights will be a nice addition to BEG

Will Al Masria be back this summer?

Yes, they have been flying for two years already.

Good thing about BEG and Serbia is that it's a source of outbound tourism so in the future we will see more and more airlines add flights.

Can the terminal handle all this extra flights?
I think the French should immediately start expansion of the facilities.

Why not if the market is there? Obviously the number of Serbs heading to Egypt is growing.

Awesome news! Always good to see some more exotic airlines at BEG.

How many airlines have announced new destinations to Belgrade this summer?

They are moving around some flights, SU is moving from 18.45 to 20.20 when the airport is completely empty.
I think all these new flights will arrive/depart during the quiet periods. Even AF flies during the quiet period, I think they depart at 15.25 so right between JU's two waves.

especially when it's an exotic destination with an exotic airline. :D

It's NOT the economics, something else is blocking Air Serbia. Is it YYZ blocking them? Is VINCI dropping their support for Air Serbia long haul? Compare news from 2018 (all from this site) with recent ones:
Earlier in 2018: VINCI will specifically enable Air Serbia to offer new long haul routes
12 Nov 2018: Air Serbia flights to Toronto "in 2019 or 2020"
26 Nov 2018: New carrier to take over Belgrade - Beijing route
17 Dec 2018: (Air Serbia) new destinations will span across three continents - Europe, North America and Asia

Developments in the last few weeks: Air Serbia new route announcement did not include North America and Asia destinations, no explanation was given from Air Serbia.
Statement from VINCI no longer mentions support for Air Serbia long haul routes, instead:
18 Feb 2019: VINCI: Air Serbia is our primary partner; also: working on attracting "a new generation of long haul airlines"

Looks like there was a quiet change and Air Serbia is no longer expanding long haul. Why?

5 so far. Air Serbia, Air Cairo, Air France, Air Arabia, ASL France.

Egyptians need visas to enter all EU member countries.

You are nuts. They (VINCI) said AGAIN at the presentation just two weeks ago how they will support Air Serbia's long haul expansion. "No explanation was given from Air Serbia." they never made any announcement so as to give you any explanation.

You should really calm down lol.

^ He has to find something after nostradamus predictions that no one would apply for BEG concession, then that tender is fixed for chinese, then that tender will be annulled, then that VInci won't take over the airport, then that Vinci won't have the money to take over the airport did not come true.

Just be extra careful about the food you consume in the all inclusive hotels, lots of food-poisoning incidents.
Also drink only bottled water.

That would be over half a million passenger increase. I just don't see it happening this year.

^ Thanks for the advice mom.

Air Cairo will most likely fly in the middle of the early morning, like their Hurghada flights, so no major problem there.

Vinci had a picture of Norwegian, not Air Serbia, during that presentation. There was also this one on 6 Sep 2018: Air Serbia has postponed its plans the launch nonstop flights until 2019.

On 6 Dec 2018: long haul operations will largely depend on securing necessary permits and overcoming bureaucratic hurdles on time.

So don't call me nuts and try to position economic reasons as an explanation. Everyone can check this site on metioned dates, all those quotes are there.

I think Air Cairo lands at 04.30 and returns at 05.30 so they 'open' the business day at BEG. :D

You are nuts because you started hatching a conspiracy theory, that's why. Had you watched the presentation, maybe you should have counted how many times images of Air Serbia were shown lol.

And there, you got your answer on what you quoted from 6 December.

And here is another VInci statement about them saying they will work with JU https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/01/vinci-etihad-to-work-to-expand-air.html

So stop with the hysteria please.

Last quote was from Dec 17, not Dec 6.

It's interesting how Air Serbia (Aviolet) operates all its charter during te daytime. A couple of years ago during Jat Airways all charters were operated during the night/early morning.

That's because Jat had no planes to fly charters during the day.

YU-ARA je na mesecnom remontu prosle godine bio u oktoru a ove tek u februaru. Mozda je planirano da predstojecu zimsku sezonu bude uposljeniji? Mozda 2X JFK,2X YYZ i 2X BEJ? A da za sledecu letnju sezonu stigne jos jedan A330. Mozda?

Nice

+1

Do Serbians need visa for Egypt?

Anyhow, BEG goes over 6 million easily

Yep Egypt is firmly coming back as a favorite holiday destination.

Yes, now that Egypt is covered I hope they focus on getting flights to Morocco.

Yes you get it on arrival. Usually if it is an organised tour group going they issue it in advance.

I really like their livery :)

Hopefully there will be some others too.

Both would benefit actually.

So I would assume the majority of people flying between Belgrade and Cairo at the moment use Aegean?

First of all visa regime with Morocco must be lifted and after it we could expect RAM to start flying to BEG

I think many use Alitalia actually.

@9.14 I'm sure there were many who transferred via other airports too :)

There are a lot of possibilities. One of the cheapest is SU but there are also flights with TK, A3, OS etc.

The more the merrier.

I think Turkish Airlines carries most of them but I think Pegaus does well as they tend to be dumping prices left and right.

Why not? BEG grew by 300.000 in 2018 without any major announcements.

Well at least nobody can say the routes to Egypt are political or emigration.

They will say it is refugees route :-)

^^The day is still young. :D

Don't forget that LO is also increasing BEG from 11 to 12 weekly from September 2019.

6.2 million pax for 2019 would be a 560.000 increase compared to 2018.
it is very difficult.

Anonymous at 10:14
No.

Do you have to pay for it?

Yes. Visa on arrival or online is 25 USD. If you get it at the consulate it's 12 USD.

Is Air Cairo an LCC?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Al Masria go year-round this winter?

They were supposed to but they didn't in the end, they only extended flights into the end of 2018.

Why? BEG already added 300.000 last year and this year we are going to see more than 70 weekly flights being added.

Nope, they serve a full hot meal and luggage is included.

They are low fare but not low cost.

Much better than what they used to have ;)

Positive affects of the concession.

Not too expensive but it is interesting to see the large number of tourists foinf to Egypt despite the visas.

I wonder at the expense of which other tourist destination. Turkey?

I think 6.1 is more realistic. But we will see.

But we have visa regime with Egypt and yet there are a lot of flights :D

Yep TK and Pegasus are quite affordable options to Egypt.

Nice, and t's only February/March. I'm sure we will see some other increases in the 19/20 winter season.

*it's

You can't obtain Moroccan visa at the airport so it rejects people travelling to that country

So there will be for sure double daily flights in summer between Serbia and Egypt, 11 on Air Cairo, 2 on JU to CAI and God knows how many charter flights. Impressive.

I am sure tour operators include the visa in the price and is obtained in Belgrade.

They are not officially a low cost because they are from Egypt so costs are low by default.

Hurgada remains unchanged:

HRG-BEG 02.00-05.30
BEG-HRG 06.30-10.00

Lol! It says: ¨Niš Constantine the Great Airport WILL BE LINKED to Egypt this coming summer season, connecting the Serbian city with the African continent through scheduled flights for the first time.¨ In addition, services between Cairo and Belgrade are also EXPECTED to launch.