Norwegian Air Shuttle will discontinue a number of routes to the former Yugoslavia this summer but will also introduce several new seasonal services to the region. The budget carrier will launch new flights from Gothenburg to Sarajevo, Stockholm to Pristina and from Helsinki to Tivat, however, all three will operate on a low-frequency basis of only one flight per week. As a result, there will be a total of eight services between Gothenburg and Sarajevo, with flights launching June 21. Services between the Swedish capital to Pristina will commence on April 2, while operations from Helsinki to Tivat will be inaugurated on April 16.
On the other hand, the airline will discontinue a number of its routes, primarily to Croatia. It will not be resuming flights between Stockholm and Zagreb and will shorten its seasonal operations from Copenhagen to the Croatian capital. Norwegian will also suspend its summer services from Stavanger and Trondheim in Norway to Pula, as well as from Oslo to Rijeka. Despite initial plans to discontinue flights between Norway's capital and Sarajevo, the airline has reversed its decision following appeals by the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Norway. Services will now resume on May 25 and run twice per week until the end of the summer season.
In a statement, Norwegian Air Shuttle said, "This is a very important market for Norwegian. We’ve had scheduled flights to the Balkans since 2004 and our presence and network has grown every year. We always explore the possibility to add new destinations to our network. Notably, passengers from the Balkans have the possibility to connect to our long haul routes". Norwegian Air Shuttle recently switched its focus from growth to profitability and outlined plans to launch a rights issue as well as a cost cutting program while at the same time selling aircraft, postponing deliveries and optimising its base structure and route network. "Going into 2019, we will enter a period of slower growth and fewer investments, while constantly looking for new and smarter ways to improve our efficiency and offer new products and services to attract new customers", the airline's CEO, Bjorn Kjos, said.
First TUI, now Norwegian is downsizing its presence on the Croatian coast. Let's hope more airlines announce flights like Volotea to compensate.
ReplyDeleteWell a glimps on the route announcement section to your right gives you the answer.
DeleteHalf of the new anouncements are to the Croatian coast, do not you worry.
DeleteYeah but we see some like TUI or Norwegian reduce their presence, advance bookings must be getting soft.
DeleteAnonymous at 09:36
DeleteOr more likely the explanation is that those two airlines are in well known financial troubles.
If it was a Dalmatian coast issue they wouldn't be cutting their flight schedule all over Europe.
Yes but they are not suspending all flights, just those that are underperforming. So...
DeleteThey are suspending flights from expensive bases like Norway, Sweden, Denmark where they have to pay high salaries to their staff.
DeleteAt the same time they launch flights from lower wage cost countries like Spain and Greece.
Still, I see them to continue to straggle, especially if the price of Oil goes back up at 2018 levels.
They fly everywhere except Ljubljana and Skopje. Why?
ReplyDeleteNo market. Plus in SKP there is Wizz that flies to that village 120 km from Oslo.
DeleteLJU has a lot of connections via Star Alliance hubs and Slovenes and Norwegians are wealthy enough to pay a bit more for connecting flights.
DeleteI'm not talking about long haul connecting flights, I'm talking about P2P. There are no flights between Ljubljana and Scandinavia.
DeleteObviously not enough demand. Adria also suspended Ljubljana- Stockholm.
Delete@anon there are seasonal flights between Helsinki and Ljubljana by Finnair.
DeleteI would not say that LJU has so mach connections via Star Alliance hubs and bases:
DeleteBRU
LJU 13
ZAG 16
TXL
LJU 0
ZAG 3
CGN
LJU 0
ZAG 7
CPH
LJU 7
ZAG 7
DUS
LJU 0
ZAG 4
FRA
LJU 21
ZAG 35
IST
LJU 14
ZAG 14
MUC
LJU 14
ZAG 28
OSL
LJU 0
ZAG 3
ARN
LJU 0
ZAG 3
VIE
LJU 14
ZAG 33
WAW
LJU 6
ZAG 14
ZRH
LJU 20
ZAG 17
In total weekly flights
LJU 109
ZAG 184
but still ZAG has many P2P routes, and routes to Star Alliance hubs in other Croatian airports (PUY, ZAD, RJK, SPU, DBV, OSI) with more than 100 weekly flights,
Slovenians are wealthy enough to take GoOpti to TSF and take cheap LCC flights.
DeleteTXL? That's a Eurowings base and they are mostly concentrated on point to point sales. So OU doesn't profit from any connections, same with CGN.
DeleteAlso LJU-WAW is 7, not 6 weekly flights.
@9.07 what are you talking about? Adria flies year-round to Copenhagen and they do very well on the route. Plus there is seasonal Helsinki-Ljubljana too operated by Finnair.
DeleteWith Eurowings you can do normal connections like with any legacy carrier. Even you can combine Eurowings and Lufthansa, Austrian, Dolomiti... when you buy ticket it will put Eurowings on list like any other Lufthansa group carrier. So you can fly Zagreb-Dusseldorf-Berlin with Eurowings and back with Lufthansa via Frankfurt for example.
DeleteLast year I was pleasantly surprised with Eurowings. Travelled Zag-Txl-Yyz. In Berlin I was transferring onto an Air Canada Rouge flight. Was able to checkin my bags in Zagreb and picked them up in Toronto.
DeleteYes but EW's business model in TXL and CGN isn't a typical hub that's after transfer passengers, it's mostly about point to point passengers. You can't compare it to DUS, MUC or FRA.
DeleteSo, not true. You can connect to other Eurowings flights, to Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Brussels, Dolomiti, and some others like Air Canada Rouge as normal business practice! Their hubs are Cologne, Sttutgart, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Vienna and Hamburg, but you can also connect to Eurowings flights in Zurich, Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Geneva.
DeleteSoon enough they’ll be flying nowhere soon.
DeleteBEG seems to be their most stable and successful market so far, this summer there will be 5 weekly flights.
ReplyDeleteLOL you have forgotten SPU
DeleteSPU? SPU has 3 daily flights by SAS to OSL, ARN and CPH. DY has a bit of a competition here :D
DeleteNorwegian is the fifth largest airline in Croatia based on seat share.
DeleteHey, OSL-SPU on SAS is 4 x a day :D
DeleteYes, DY is especially popular in SPU in November, December, January... Oh wait...
DeleteIt's nice to see that they mostly use the B737MAX to BEG.
DeleteI didn't forget SPU, it's a summer seasonal destination for them. I am speaking about year-round destinations.
Delete@An.09.19 and 10.40.
DeleteBEG is the biggest ex-yu airport, with the biggest passenger numbers and will always be, no doubt about it. But it's not "the most stable and succesful" for Norwegian. It's SPU , which has more Norwegian passengers compared to BEG, and the steadiest growth, year by year. Are all those passengers carried during 7 or 12 months, is irrelevant. And I really don't understand why some people have urge to point out BEG as the best even in the cases when it's not, like now. Is it some kind of complex of what?
@pozdrav iz Rijeke,
DeleteDo you have any real numbers to support your claim that DY had more passengers to SPU than to BEG?
@An.12.58
DeleteNorwegian time table from Split, summer 2019 :
Bergen 3 weekly
Copenhagen DAILY
Gothenburg 2 weekly
Helsinki 5 weekly
London Gatwick 2 weekly
Oslo DAILY plus 2 weekly (wed, fr)
Stavanger 1 weekly
Stockholm Arlanda DAILY
Trondheim 4 weekly
Do your maths :)
Let's take a closer look.
DeleteSplit-Bergen, 3 weekly
Stars: 18.06.2019
Ends: 08.08.2019
Split-Copanhagen
Stars: 03.04.2019
Ends: 26.10.2019
Until mid-June it's two weekly, then six weekly until August when it goes down to 2 weekly. So it's not even daily during the peak season.
Split-Gothenburg
Starts: 31.03.2019
Ends: 20.10.2019
Split-Helsinki
Stars: 02.04.2019
Ends: 26.10.2019
September it goes down from 6 to 5.
Split-Gatwick
Starts: 03.04.2019
Ends: 26.10.2019
Split-Oslo
Starts: 02.04.2019
Ends: 26.10.2019
4 weekly in May. 5 from June. 9 starts in the second half of June and ends in the last week of June, so for about two weeks. Then it goes back to daily and in September it's back at 4 weekly.
Split-Stavanger - 1 weekly
Stars: 22.06.2019
Ends: 10.08.2019
I was too lazy to do the last two but I saw that ARN is 5 or 6 outside the busiest periods.
So the numbers in Amadeus don't match yours. I still think BEG is ahead of SPU. ;)
Very conveniently you are "lazy" to list daily Stockholm and 4 weekly Trondheim and to count and then you "think" BEG is ahead of SPU, with 5 flights compared to 40. My point proved. Discussion over. Cheers!
DeleteYou purposely misinformed the public and now you are running away. You said OSL-SPU is 9 weekly when in reality 9 weekly operates like two weeks a year. Other destinations operate a few times per week for about three to five months. BEG on the other hand operates 5 times the whole year, in July and in August and in March... and so it compensates the difference during the period when there are absolutely no flights in Split, you know that period when the airport welcomes 30.000 passengers?
DeleteAlso once again you lie. Trondhein starts in May as one weekly. Four weekly happens end of June and in August it goes back to 1 weekly. Route ends on 26.10.
ARN ends as well on 26.10 and it's only 6 weekly during the peak period. Other times it's 4.
So you see, all the numbers you presented on here were wrong, totally wrong. You should be ashamed of yourself. I guess you hate of BEG and Serbia is making you disillusioned.
OSL 9 weekly, ARN daily... HA!
Then again, maybe DY has once again reduced Croatia and you didn't notice it. ;)
SPU : 5 weeks x 40 weekly flights + 5 weeks x 20 weekly flights + 10 weeks x 10 weekly flights, is 200 + 100 + 100 weekly flights, which is 400 flights, during four and a half summer months, based on your numbers. I even didn't include all flights and all summer months. On the other hand, BEG : 52 weeks x 5 weekly flights, which is 260 flights. So, once again Split has minimum of 400 Norwegian flights per year, while Belgrade has 260. All my information is from Avioradar webpage, I did not invent it, as I have no reason to do it. I could say the same things for you which you said about me, but I will refrain from that, as my level of tolerance and culture is obviously on different level from yours. I really had no intention to discuss any more knowing I was right but I had to write this because never in my 53 years of age, some of which I spent in Belgrade, nobody ever called me a lier. So if someone has reason to be proud of something, after these numbers and this text, I think it's you. Proud under quotations, of course. Cheers and good night!
DeleteSo you are saying some random Croatian blog is more credible than Amadeus?! One would think in your decades of life you would have learned better but I guess not. And anyway, like I said, BEG compensates during the slow months when SPU has no traffic which is another indicator of BEG being more successful while in SPU they have to stick to only a few months. Airlines like stability.
DeleteExcuse me, which part of 400 against 240 you don't understand?
DeleteAs far as I know you cannot find any charters in Amadeus GDS.
DeleteI think this airline will eventually collapse. They are expanding all over the place while the amount of debt they have accumulated only keeps on increasing.
ReplyDeleteIt is a matter of time. I give them max 1 year.
Deleteyupp. it will be an interesting company to monitor. etihad size spectacle could be in play.
Deletewhat is interesting is that they stole pilots from ryanair and pressured o'learry to allow unions. now they will fail or downsize considerably, a lot of pilots will be on the market, but ryanair business model was changed indfinetly. all in 2y period.
They clearly over-expanded and the biggest issue seem to be long haul operations. However, most of the changes they are making right now are on the short haul ops., which is a bit confusing.
DeleteLong haul low cost doesn't seem to work well between Europe and North America.
Yeah, for an airline (lowcost so low yield) servicing that kind of debt is near impossible. To expand the way they did requires big cap ex but with money you already have, not money you borrow.
DeleteThey are not that active on the ex-Yu markets compared to their competitors.
ReplyDeleteVery true and only recently have they turned a few seasonal routes into year-round. Like many other airlines, they are very slow on this market which, I think, has potential.
DeleteI'm surprised that CPH-ZAG didn't work for them.
ReplyDeleteI am more surprised about ARN-ZAG, even OU flies it in summer only. I am surprised the market is that small.
DeleteHow many flights did they operate from ARN to ZAG? Was it one weekly?
There are very little croats in stockholm and especially croats from zagreb area in general, most of the croats from croatia ate 2nd, 3rd generations by now, the new wave of croatians in sweden is from bosnia, and croats live primarily in the west coast of sweden (gothenburg area)
DeleteI have never tried them. What are they like service wise? Has anyone flown with them long haul?
ReplyDeleteOne of the best LCC in Europe. After them comes easyJet and then long list of nobody...
DeleteThey are not bad, they have free internet onboard all of their flights.
DeleteA friend of mine used them from Orlando to Belgrade via Stockholm and the service was decent. He also made a bid for upgrade to their 'business' class for 200USD and it was a good value for the money
DeleteNorwegian is a "low fare" airline rather than "low cost". This is what brought them in their current financial situation.
DeleteI flew trans Atlantic with them in 2016. Not once during the entire flight was I approached by a flight attendant asking if I wanted or needed anything, not even water!
DeleteLater I found out that you had to order everything via the in flight entertainment system. Had no idea and would have if I was told.
Found it strange that this was not mentioned, not on the ticket, not during the flight. Noticed other passengers were confused too and wondered why some people were getting food and drinks and others weren’t but no one seemed to be able to ask anyone because all the flight attenednts seemed to always be MIA.
What is going on with ZAG? They are losing frequencoes on one of the rare LCC that flies there.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the fairytail about bringing new airlines in ZAG is over...
I think the market was there but airport charges have eroded yields so it wasn't worth sticking around.
DeleteYou might be right, but then it looks really funny seeing ZAG is in negotitations with Ryanair
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/11/ryanair-in-talks-over-zagreb-and-split.html
FR will walk away the moment they get the airport's price list. They will just compare it to the one in BNX.
DeleteNorwegian are at risk of going bust, even if they manage the summer, by next winter they will collapse. I wouldn't risk flying with them!
ReplyDeleteI think it is exaggerated. The fact they reduce flights to Croatia does not have to mean automatically they will go bust.
DeleteIt is certain that they have some financial issues, but they aren't the first and surely not the last air carrier that survives despite having financial issues
Hmm DY suspends ZAG-ARN the same year FR launches NYO-BNX. Coincidence?
ReplyDeleteThere is generally a large Serbian community in Sweden. I suppose until now they used ZAG, that is those from northern Srpska.
DeleteAlso could it be that DY is getting subventions from Bosnia if the embassy intervened regarding OSL-SJJ?
Many will say it is coincidence but we know:
DeleteThe truth is out there
For sure 3 times per week Croatia Airlines ZAG-ARN with connection to SJJ, SKP, OMO, PUY, ZAD, OSI, SPU, DBV did not help Norwegian.
DeleteAre there these days (February) direct flights ZAG-ARN operated by OU or ARN is only seasonal?
DeleteThis year it was seasonal, but this winter it will be all year.
DeleteYes but OU was even before and it didn't affect DY. I think it was FR that killed them off.
DeleteHuge financial crises kills Norwegian, not Ryanair or Croatia Airlines.
DeleteRyanair in BNX made this route a financial disaster for them.
DeleteReducing short-haul network as cost saving measures while launching adventurous long-haul flights (ATH-JFK)? This story sounds very familiar to me, but I'm not sure which country will subsidize Norwegian. Anyway, consolidation in EU aviation continues and Norwegian took a big step forward in this race.
ReplyDeleteWell they can always redeploy the 737s to other more profitable destinations while Dreamliners are coming regardless of anything else so they need to expand. That's why they are launching ATH-JFK.
DeleteATH-JFK during the Summer has massive demand, very expensive tickets and the planes are completely foul.
DeleteThey will make money on that route and also on the BCN-ORD.
In Europe their problem is that they try to compete with the likes of FR and W6 while paying Scandinavian level of wages to their staff.
I don't see them having a happy long term life as a company.
PRN flights seem to be doing well for them. They have been expanding there every year.
ReplyDeleteCould new Wizz Turku-Skopje have impact on Norwegian's Helsinki-Pristina?
Deletetheir routes to PRN are all seasonal incl. HEL. now they could use Turku-SKP in winter
DeleteNice to see a new (western) route to Sarajevo, even if it is only for 2 months. Scandinavia is so underserved from Sarajevo, considering the size of the Bosnian diaspora there.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if it has any affect on Wizz Air's GOT-Tuzla flights.
DeleteI don't think 8 Norwegian flights to Sarajevo on this route can have much of an affect on Wizz in Tuzla. Gothenburg is their second busiest route from TZL. They had 50.930 passengers in 2017.
DeleteOther than Croatia it is unfortunate they haven't launched any routes from their bases outside of Scandinavia to ex-Yu.
ReplyDeleteAgree, especially from Spain but now it's too late.
DeleteI will just leave this here
ReplyDeletehttps://i.imgur.com/5b0bTfP.png
Hahahaha pure gem. Maybe these are the big plans they had for ZAG?
DeleteHahah, this is awesome
DeleteI heard when the founded the airline, they had plans of being profitable as well. Maybe these are the plans they had :D
DeletePoor attempt to be funny
DeleteNorwegian for sure is not in same position they were 3 or 5 years ago. They are on edge of bankruptcy, selling many planes (some 30% of their fleet will be sold in 3 year period), selling shares in bank they had, issued extra bonds (for 3rd time in one year), cutting frequencies all around globe, taking huge loans, closing bases, cutting staff, shrinking level of service...
DeleteSo, their plan today and several years ago (when they were in huge green) are not same. For example they move from Asia, closing almost all Asian routes. You should know that before putting here some sort of serious comment.
September 2017 was several years ago?
DeleteSerious comment?
Hilarious
In air traffic 2 years is "several years ago". 2 years in air traffic is like 10 years in other business. Your should know that. Expansion and plans in 2017 was based on 2016 profit which was 154,8 million EUR. In 2017 they were in red 263,8 million EUR. A little difference, isn't it?
DeleteThere was more from the same source. I guess everyone's plans changed.
Deletehttps://i.imgur.com/fgjAJU5.png
Yes, they were all in red starting from 2017 so therefore all of them including highly profitable easyJet had to cancel ZAG
DeleteDude, just admit that you are not an insider, you don't have this kind of information and stop embarrassing yourself. I admire your love affair with one airport in particular but I don't think there is anybody here who is taking you seriously.
DeleteI was commenting on Norwegian situation 2017, and today, but I was not author of that post. I don't have inside information from Zagreb airport.
DeleteInterestingly enough BEG used to have GOT flights which were discontinued when Jat became, Air Serbia. How come Norwegian never stepped in on this route?
ReplyDeleteWizz Air flies the route. It's useless competing against them.
DeleteBecause BEG-GOT is operated by Wizz Air.
DeleteThey could start flying to INI.
DeleteWhy to INI?
DeleteBig diaspora from eastern and southeastern Serbia living in Sweden.
DeleteActually I think Oslo-Nis would be a good route for Norwegian to launch.
DeleteI think a lot of people from Belgrade area also live in Sweden. Otherwise W6 would have cancelled this route
DeleteThey also increased ARN-BEG from one to two weekly. OSL is now 3 weekly year-round.
DeleteWell done BEG!
DeleteWizz needs to increase GOT to at least 4pw, many of us in gothenburg area needs to go throu MMX sometimes its really annoying, there is potential in GOT for even more flights than that. Is there any plans of increasing GOT or is it too late for this year?
DeleteAh moj Nikola, Wizz Air should have done many things in the past in BEG but we all know how little they did and how passive they have become in the end.
DeleteWhat's with these new routes??? Flights that operate once weekly are hardly profitable.
ReplyDeleteSays who?
DeleteIt will be good if ZAG keeps 3% growth this year
ReplyDeleteI think that's realistic, as they will have around 8 new weekly frequencies this summer.
DeleteYes, but it is so poor result.
DeleteAnd especially because ZAG had a zero growth, despite the Handball European Championship last year in January, when the city was full of fans, that arrived by plane. So you may critisize it but in the end it was a very good result for ZAG in January and they will grow to 3,5 Million pax this year, while Croatia will reach around 11,5 million passengers at all airports.
DeleteZAD/SPU/ and DBV had great results in January, so was ZAGs.
Please find any other example that any of the cities from ex-Yu had minus or zero growth 12 months after some sport event was organized there.
DeleteIt seems to be only case with ZAG. Or better to say justification of poor results.
12 months after? How else could you compare two same months if not letting 12 months pass? :D
DeleteBtw, just because you call it justification, it is not a justification but an explantion.
Or would you call the negative growth in PRN this months because of Germania´s demise a justification for the poor results? or is it an EXPLANTION?
I see you didn't find any other example of it.
DeleteFrom the other side you are comparing withdrawal of air carrier Germania as of one of the biggest contributors to PRN results with organization of sports event in ZAG?
Priceless.
LJU had a lot of charter flights to IST in september 2017(basketball) and they still had a growth in 2018
DeleteOf course they did.
DeleteGood to see them add some new routes but unfortunate they are all seasonal. Maybe they extend some of the routes.
ReplyDeleteDY have serious financial issues and might follow AB's steps soon.
ReplyDeleteThey have extremely low prices on many routes and fierce competition with legacy carriers too.
On the other hand, it seems that ZAG indeed is in a stagnation period. No new routes, now fewer DY frequencies. No OU expansion. Situation is becoming worrying for the figures.
INI - there is no doubt that INI-HEL will immediately work out. This way, this will be a direct competition with SKP-TKU.
SJJ - finally a new Euro route and not ME one.
SKP - absolutely no way of seeing DY anytime soon. Unless they consider SKP-PMI or SKP-ORY.
Where did you see INI-HEL?
DeleteThey need to start flights from Scandinavia to Ohrid.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly an "overhaul" - more like a tweaking of their schedule. Nothing drastic at all. Considering their dire financial situation, one can expect refinements to their schedule across their network, not only to the Western Balkans.
ReplyDeletewell it would be good that slovenian government turns MBX to LCC airport, if not then LJU - OSL/ARN/GOT/MMX/RKV with norwegian?!? it would be good to start some of this connections.
ReplyDeleteValjda svako zna da je Norwegian AS pred bankrotom. Rezu gdje god stignu
ReplyDelete