Cool ! Let's see what they have in their bag of goodies !

Would be surprised if they were NOT "in talks with numerous airlines" as they would not be doing their job then.

" However, there is no exclusivity because in the modern world, working with a single airline is not an effective way to help a country "

This is encouraging to hear.

I really hope that the GoS doesn't interfere in their work .... JU needs more competition - especially on routes where they have either a monopoly or duopoly

Ok it seems like easyjet will definitely expand at BEG.

Really hope so. They need to take the game up to JU so that they lower their fares to more reasonable levels

Seems to me like TAP might coming back.

This is going to be great summer for Belgrade!

It is already obvious that easyJet will increase its presence in Belgrade probably opening the base and that TAP will again start flying to Serbian capital.

There is no doubt there will be also new long haul surprises and it is to be expected Belgrade passenger traffic will boost this year!

Well done Belgrade!

Some longhaul flights by Norwegian would be awesome !

JU does not need competition, passengers do

The low cost long haul thing seems most interesting to me. I doubt they would get an airline to fly any routes that could be of interest to Air Serbia so I do wonder which route such an airline could operate.

Isn't that awesome news?

Hopefully with a better schedule than last time.

+1

"...as well as upgrades in frequencies and capacity on existing services."

Shall we finally see TK wide body on regular base in BEG?

But could TAP work? I mean they did use to fly to BEG and obviously ended the flights because there wasn't enough demand.

Norwegian flying long haul from Belgrade.

Sounds great.

Well previous management wasn't. Any new airline that did come, came on their own. No one tried to attract any new airlines. I heard from 3 different people that it took them months to respond to an email from Emirates requesting some technical information about the airport.

I think first step would be to secure additional flights to Doha and Abu Dhabi on a year-round basis. EY and QR could fly in winter at least 9 or 10 times per week.

Norwegian has already increased ARN from 1 to 2 weekly while Oslo was three weekly for the first time on a year-round basis. Red Wings has also announced its summer schedule to BEG as four weekly.

LO will be increasing BEG to 12 weekly from September, I don't think they have enough slots or planes in WAW for more flights at this time.

With Chinese arrivals booming, I think they might be looking at more flights to China without nonsensical stops along the way. So far the third daily on SU is packed with Chinese passengers heading to BEG.

I think they are working on bringing Air Canada Rouge as well. BEG could be extremely successful for them especially as the market is becoming a popular tourist destination.

All in all BEG will grow in coming years and it will finally close the gap with SOF which is back to growing at a normal pace- 5.5% in January.

That said, all this is extremely bad news for Wizz Air which is still sleeping.

They ended flights because their schedule was a mess and because they were on average three hours late each time.

TAP was a disaster that year. They had horrible times in the middle of the night/morning, they usually cancelled their flights because of a lack of aircraft or were severely delayed. They planned to fly a triangle route during winter Lisbon-Budapest-Belgrade-Lisbon but cancelled that in the end.

What are the laws that might affect Norwegian Long Haul flights? Can they fly from Serbia to other countries outside EU? Norway is not in EU and they have Dreamliners in EI, G and LN register as far as I know. Will they be obliged to use domestic and cheaper crews if they start flights?

Vinci could surely lobby the government to allow that. There is a reason why Vinci is rushing to expand facilities, they know BEG's massive potential to attract passengers from a wide region, not just Serbia.

That is very good question

The guy is completely right about the need for mix of legacy and low costs. Hope our concessionaire realizes that too.

And I have heard that they did it intentionally in order to protect EY as EK was quite interested to fly to BEG

I suppose JU flight to Iberian Peninsula will show real potential of that market from BEG as they will cover code shares as well as P2P passengers.

TAP had terrible flying times and Vueling followed it.
Only Air Serbia has acceptable flying times.

+1

Exactly. Their general lack of interest in attracting any new airline was to protect JU+EY. Thankfully that won't be the case anymore. My guess is when Vinci is interested in opening some new route they will first ask JU if they want to launch it, if they don't they will look for another airline.

They were also protecting Wizz Air.

All this growth in BEG will kill TSR. They already had a disastrous year.

^ I doubt that was their objective :D

Anonymous at 09:03
Not so much for JU though.

Anonymous 18 February 2019 at 09:04
+1

Vinci is talking about new routes but hiding terminal details. Why?

Even with their current fares JU is losing money, imagine if they lower them further.
I don't really think it is realistic to expect JU to reduce fares even a little.

Hahaha true, but they profitted from that protection as well. :D

Anon 09.30

Not just for JU, this is really bad news for W6.

JU is finally growing, they will compensate with transfer passengers.

They already told you what the surface area is going to be. I don't think they are required to submit a blueprint to you and I doubt they will until they get a construction permit.

Is it even allowed by bilateral agreements for it to happen in BEG?
They would be ideal for our type of market, LCC prices would allow a lot of us to travel transatlanticlly or in Asia.

for UAE, Russia, US, Canada and all other non-ECAA markets (where there is liberal air service agreement, ie. open-skies), they (and everyone else) need to register a company in Serbia. for all ECAA flights they don't need

More TK capacity would do the exact opposite from attracting passengers from a wide region to fly through BEG.

+1
I can't believe they are starting ATH-JFK, a market that would be also served by UA, EK, DL double daily and AA from PHL. A BEG-ORD flight would have been a much better use of their 787.

Transfer passengers are generally less profitable for the airline than O&D pax.

QR asked for a permit for additional frequencies last year (I think 12 weekly in total) and got them but they never exercised those rights. So they might expand, although their expansion might also be in capacity. This winter they are operating the A321 on a lot of flights to BEG and in the summer its exclusively A321 equipment.

Serbia and Norway are both members and signatories to ECAA. From that perspective, a Norwegian-based carrier can establish flights from Serbia without any limits - but not sure if those flights can serve the points outside of ECAA (such as the US).

I do not see your point.

TK wide body would be for passengers mainly from Serbia as all the other neighbouring countries have their own TK flights.

So what? What matters is that they are not loss-making which is all JU cares about. They are copying other airlines' models that work just fine.

More flights and more capacity means more seats on the market. The more seats there are the more low booking classes are available. They would be more attractive to passengers from western Romania, eastern Bosnia and Croatia, southern Hungary... and so on.

They signed MoU in Nov of 2014 so they had a lot of time to fine tune plans. No permits are stopping them from presenting info with disclaimer. General response to what they presented so far was negative.

Clearly JU is not copying other airlines model. They are loss making and have been for years.
They were offering heavily discounted tickets to transfer passengers from Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Lebanon, Israel and were making up (part) of the difference from expensive fares at BEG O&D passengers.

They signed a cooperation MoU in 2014. Not a MoU to run the airport. Get your facts straight. That had nothing to do with Vinci's concession.
And if you knew a bit more about the topic you would know that the masterplan will be adopted later this month.

The guy IS concessionaire :) Actually :)

A long us we are not an EU member Norwegian would need a Serbian AOC to fly outside of Europe from BEG.
This isn't happening.

Umm majority of airlines offer cheaper transfer tickets than point to point tickets. Particularly airlines from the Middle East/Gulf.

Their losses are getting smaller and smaller meaning they are doing something right.
Also for how many years were LO, BT, OS... loss making before turning a profit? It takes time for an airline to consolidate itself on a certain market.

Experts everywhere on here...

Nice to read. So first we might expect a few more new European routes.

Greece to USA market is on a whole different level. Plus they get a lot of cruise ship passengers.
Us on the other hand as long us we are not an EU member Norwegian would need a Serbian AOC to fly outside of Europe from BEG. And so would Level, Eurowings or anyone else.
This isn't happening.

JU offers decently priced tickets at this point, they just need to build volume like other airlines hence why they are launching 9 new routes.

Unfortunately not. Only airlines registered in Serbia can operate flights outside the ECCA area.

^ Before you give such definitive answers, I would recommend you read the Open Sky Agreement between Serbia/EU and the USA
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM%3Al24483

Despite indications that detailed plans for BEG development would be presented during ceremony that was held last week, that unfortunately was not the case as it sole purpose was political marketing. So, without too many facts, we can only make some speculations about future plans. Here are several captured renderings and one scheme I managed to find - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JhON11E4pY4DJr0sXyRv5ke2Z3JMk6Rw?usp=sharing. As it can bee seen in these pictures, both A and C wings of the current terminals will be lengthened. At least four air bridges (capable of handling widebodies) will be added to C wing and at least three (probably more) will be added to A wing. T2 will considerably be expanded at the point of intersection of two wings while, what it can be considered as new terminal will be built around current location of Borik restaurant. I would say that part of the airport will undergo biggest changes. It could be assumed that in the first phase C wing will be extended while expansion of A wing will be carried out later, after new control tower (it seems that existing one will be demolished) and new cargo terminal are built. As most of the work will be around current buildings, it safely could be assumed that new runway will be built between taxiway A and current one (so-called embedded runway), not towards south west (as according to some previous plans). How it might look like and where those nine taxiways are planned can be seen in enclosed scheme. We can also assume that new runway will be one of their priorities and will be built pretty soon. If similar runway setup at Gatwick Airport can serve the purpose, it should be perfectly adequate for BEG too, at least in next thirty years or so. As I generally don’t like megalomania, all these solutions look very reasonable and rational to me.

Give us more data please. It may be one time effect due to closure of some FR routes, but Blue air may expand instead. Do not write them off.

Clearly you didn't read it Anon 10:09 before posting it.
It clearly prohibits non Serbian or non American carriers from operating passenger flights between the two countries. And the same goes for Canada too.

Vinci is also smart, they are encouraging airlines to add flights at quiet periods of the day, ASL flies in the evening, Transavia is adding a night departure from BEG, Aeroflot is moved to 20.20... they are reducing congesting with customers that can afford to move flights. I am sure that is why easyJet is good for them because BSL and GVA arrive during the quiet times.

What is killing TSR is the massive growth of OTP.
They handled almost 14 million passengers last year!
It is really depressing if we compare it in the 80s when BEG was a far busier airport than OTP.

Good news for BEG and passengers.

Good luck Belgrade!

@anon 9.16 do you know by any chance how many flights did LOT have to BEG last summer?

Romania is becoming the economic powerhouse of the Balkans, no wonder the numbers are skyrocketing. I mean the gross average salary is 1000 EUR, people have more money to travel. Add the the massive diaspora to that. OTP will easily reach 20 mln.

Anon@10:22
+1000

Belgrade - Prague for 240 eur without luggage is decent price? Not for tomorrow but tickets for whichever day in summer, 5-6 months in advance.

But, from the other side...Would Vinci really mentioned DY flying long haul out of BEG if they did not have method how to achieve it?
After all, I am sure they they know rules about ECAA

Is their a possibility BA may return to BEG?

It's possible. Few people saw AF returning to BEG but here they are.

My guess is TAP and SAS.

Pretty much every single foreign airline has boosted frequencies or capacity for S2019.

Nice to see. I think this year will be very strong for BEG.

And it's good that so many legacy carriers introducing extra flights.

I honestly doubt.

Of course it would be good for BEG, but I do not see they can bring something special.

For P2P passengers their prices are quite high and service on the low cost level. Also we already have JU and W6 who fly there.

For transit passengers they can offer a lot, but let's not forget that Serbian citizens need visa even to make a transfer in UK.

And many other airlines in Europe (LH, OS, AF, LX, KL through HV, EY, QR...) offer same or better connecting possibilities without visa applying process and without visa costs.

Except OU. They decreased SPU from 3 to 2 weekly.

2019 will definitely be the strongest year ever.

And many other airlines in Belgrade*

Adding 9 new routes and waiting for them to develop will actually reduce the airline's load-factor.

My guess is U2, TP, OK, FR maybe IB

Yes, and all of them would be flying through BEG.

So, why then "exact opposite from attracting passengers from a wide region to fly through BEG"?

Vinci has no "method" to alter bilateral agreements between RoS and the US or Canada.
The governments only do.

@ Anon 10:44

I don't know where you get this kind of info about Romania, I think you didn't understand data you have read.
Amount you talking is GROSS salary, which means that actual NET salary is below 600€. Economics is not good. government has pushing some additional taxes to finance & some other sectors in attempt to collect some money and keep social tension before elections.
What you did get right is that they had large diaspora, people are moving from Romania because economics is not good.

You see what happened to fares on the Prague route once Hainan stopped flying ??

And to the "smart" person who commented above that it is consumers who need competition rather than JU - with competition come lower fares... DUH !

Moreover, greater competiton is needed for JU because it will be forced to further streamline its business and shed its bloated workforce and other non-competitive work practices to reduce its costs in order to remain competitive.

So more competition will be good for both consumers and ultimately JU ....

Anon at 10.05am ... who says that Norwegian would need Serbian AOC ? Stop talking rubbish please. There have been plenty of examples where this has been allowed. Hainan flying from BEG to Prague; Belavia flying between BUD and BEG and if we go back farther, Uzbekistan Airways flew from BEG to NYC.

It only requires GoS to approve such flights ....

Here is the method

Član
3.
Određivanje avio prevozilac i izdavanje dozvola

1.
Svaka strana ugovornica ima pravo da , diplomatskom notom, odredi avio prevozioca ili avio prevozioce za obavljanje ugovorenog saobraćaja na linijama utvrđenim ovim sporazumom u pogledu države te strane ugovornice, kao i da povuče odluku o određivanju , ili da prethodno određenog avio prevozioca zameni drugim

TK widebody capacity would be horrible in Vinci's attempts to get long haul carriers to fly to BEG. Where do you think the extra capacity would be used for ? To suck out more 5/6th freedom traffic from Serbia. if they allowed that, it would make it far less attractive for other long haul carriers to consider BEG. Keep TK capacity for 3/4th freedon traffic - as the bilateral agreement intended

Really ?? Then how on earth did Uzbekistan Airways manage to fly from BEG to NYC back in the mid-2000's ?

If you did not understand the point that passengers need competition you could have asked for clarification. Otherwise you are "smart".

JU does not need competition - their best surrounding is monopol and they love it. PRG proves it. Nothing will force them to streamline their business. If the competition is too strong, they will simply leave. IST and WAW prove it.

Passengers do need competition between airlines on the routes because only competition between airliners can decrease the price and that is one of the most important factors for the passengers.

The best example are very ow prices JU offers to Berlin.

For more information ask easyJet.

Have a look on the post at 12:20h

LO had 11 last summer.

How can OTP affect TSR when the two airports are 700 km apart with no highway?

Anon 11:53

And indeed I said gross, do you know where Romania was 10 years ago?
Of couse 600 is not much compare to Germany but compared to what Romania had before joining the European Union and even compared to other Balkan countries it is a substantial change. Government is increasing the wages in the public sector and the growing middle class means growing demand for travel. Please go visit Bucharest and you will see why OTP is growing like crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

If average wage in Serbia reaches 600 EUR, believe me, BEG will have a much higher passanger base than today.

600kom would be more correct :)
And of course it doesn't, people just don't realize how big country Romania is and how bad is their road infrastructure.
And on OTP side, they have ~8% growth YOY, which is not really "massive". And yes, they have 14 million passengers but don't forget that Romania has 20 million people. Air traffic is, because of bad infrastructure, used even for intra country traveling.
On the other hand, TSR definitely has some issues, because it is only airport with decline in 2018.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Romania

The real problem for BEG is Budapest, not Sofia. SOF has barely any effect on BEG's numbers.

They can't leave all their routes if they find competitors on more and more routes ! What then ??

Anon 12:08 what are you talking about?
Both GoS and the United States need to allow Norwegian to fly between BEG and the US!
Current US administration won't allow it. They have specifically targeted Norwegian for unfair business practices and being a threat to US carriers.
Also Belavia, Hainan and Uzebekistan airlines did not had a flight starting and ending between Serbia and US/Hungary/Czechia. It was a tag on of a flight originating in Belarus, China and Uzbekistan.
If you do not know why this fundamental difference is important please educate yourself first and then post in an aviation forum.

@ Anon 11:53

Sorry, I missed that you have written "gross".
I was in Bucharest (OTP) roughly 10 times in last 6 months so I have idea of how airport is working. I also had intense talk with locals about economics, they are improving for sure. When you go into details not everything is so rosy...

Both GoS and the United States need to allow Norwegian to fly between BEG and the US!
Both of them!
Current US administration won't allow it. They have specifically targeted Norwegian for unfair business practices and being a threat to US carriers.
JU needed to first ask permission when it applied for the JFK route that it would be allowed to substitute YU-ARA with an EY bird while its own aircraft would be undergoing maintenance!
Also Belavia, Hainan and Uzebekistan airlines did not had a flight starting and ending between Serbia and US/Hungary/Czechia. It was a tag on of a flight originating in Belarus, China and Uzbekistan.
If you do not know why this fundamental difference is important please educate yourself first and then post in an aviation forum.

And I see no EW any more. Looked for Stuttgart flight, but I didnt find it.

It will be bookable by the end of the month. Confirmed by EW.

SOF, OTP, BUD and of course VIE definitely effect BEG's numbers.
They all try to get as much traffic from our region flying through their hubs as possible.

But it is bad news for JU.

Great to see them back

I am definitely seeing Ryanair stepping into Belgrade with 3 planes and competing with JU and W6, similar to Sofia.
This might happen by March 2020 and the new routes from Belgrade will be to Jordan, Ukraine, Georgia, Portugal and Luxembourg.
It makes sense to launch more routes and connect more continents.

FR could come to BEG now when Vinci is leading it, but FR can't fly from BEG to Jordan, Ukraine and Georgia unless they obtain special permits

When we will have the numbers for January?

Concession in ZAG resulted in smaller and cheaper terminal than originally announced. There are valid concerns something similar can happen to BEG. Showing winning design from the start is a good way to prevent reductions.

You asked the same question 2 weeks ago and were told that VINCI only publishes numbers on a quarterly basis. Numbers for first quarter will be published on 12th April. What's the point of asking the same thing over and over if you have already been given an answer.

What winning design are you talking about? A condition of the Zagreb tender was a new terminal. It's not a condition for the Belgrade concession. A condition is to expand capacity.

no internal info?

There are no hubs in SOF or OTP. There is one in ATH and there is a plethora of low-costs in Budapest that serve the larger region.

Well all these new arrivals at BEG will also affect BUD to a certain extent. It will be enough if it stops Serbs from going to BUD to catch a flight.

Anon 13.01

Exactly and that's why I said that BEG will affect TSR more than any other airport. Belgrade is just 180 km away and road infrastructure isn't that bad, not to mention that there are barely any cars up until Belgrade. Plus now with Pupin Bridge there is no need to enter Belgrade, you go straight around it to the airport.

Difference between BEG and ZAG is that Zagreb couldn't function with the old terminal, a new one was desperately needed. In BEG there is still room to expand until a new terminal is built.

Eurowings missed their chance in Serbia, now there is no room for them.

I don't know to whom you were addressing your post, but the information you provided are correct.

Above information given in Serbian are the part of billateral between Serbia and Canada so technically DY could fly between Serbia and Canada as long Serbia determines DY as air carrier on that route. It does not have to be JU or company with Serbian AOC

Last time Vinci said they would support Air Serbia long haul expansion. Did Air Serbia drop their long haul (PEK, YYZ etc) ambitions?

New generation of long haul airlines mentioned by Vinci could mean other airlines. It could mean IndiGo (India), WOW (Island), Jin Air (S. Korea) etc.

I am curious to see how SOF does this year, so far there are no new airlines/destinations.

Norwegian is not in a state to launch any new longhaul routes, let alone from Serbia.

If you read the last sentence of the article you will see the new long haul routes they just announced.

Belgrade - Reykjavik route? Would like to see that one day :)

Ocigledno da mnogo pozitivnih dogadjaja dolaze iz sveta koncesionara VINCI Airports na Beogradski aerodrom Nikola Tesla. Novo prolece i mogucnosti zapocinje u rastu destinacija, putnika i rekonstrukcije. Sto prije gradnja kapaciteta, time prije i povratak ogromnog novca od jedne ipo milijarde evra. Koji ce transformisati Srpsku luku do nesluceno lepog izgleda i potencijala za Srbiju dvadeset prvog veka. Prelepo ce biti posmatranje sto dvadesetak hiljada aviona u toku godine sa nove terase za posmatranje aviona. Sa velikim sadrzajem i kaffeom, privilegija ce biti za entuzijaste avijacije i postovaoce novo rastuce luke kraj grada Beograda. Looking forward to joining club.
Rodney & Assoc.
Kraljevo ✈🌍✈🌏✈🌎✨🔅☺✈

Turks are almost number 1 tourists in Serbia. Those extra seats would be used to further boost numbers which started to stagnate as there are no more flights being added. Also, it would help bring in even more Chinese so no, a TK widebody wouldn't hurt BEG.

OK? Their brand is about to disappear so I doubt they would be launching flights. :(

FI has a massive network in North America and they are strong in places where Serbs live such as Chicago, Toronto, New York... also I think they can operate BEG with the MAX. Flight wouldn't be longer than 5.5 hours. Also they are adding a new bank which will allow them to operate flights further away like Belgrade, Athens, Rome and so on.

It also needs to be mentioned that there are more annd more people from Serbia in Reykyavik and the tourism in Island is booming.
I surely recommend this country to be visited

They do have lower results than 10 years ago, but they still have more passengers than Air Serbia.