Low cost carrier Ryanair is looking into further expanding its operations in Montenegro. The airline's Route Development Manager, Gary Butler, met with the General Manager of Airports of Montenegro, Danilo Orlandić, to discuss growth potential. The budget airline will introduce its sixth destination to Podgorica this summer season, with flights from Bologna to launch on April 1. Services will run twice per week, each Monday and Friday, throughout the year. Ryanair faces no direct competition on the route, with Alitalia and Montenegro Airlines maintaining services between Rome and Podgorica, while Wizz Air operates flights from Milan Malpensa to the Montenegrin capital. Furthermore, Ryanair's subsidiary, Laudamotion, will be adding services between Stuttgart and Podgorica from April 2.
Speaking to EX-YU Aviation News, the airline said it expects to handle 175.000 passengers on its operations to and from the Montenegrin capital. "We look forward to carrying more than 175.000 annual customers through Podgorica airport this year. Ryanair offers six routes in total operating from Podgorica Airport. Customers can fly twice weekly from Podgorica to Stockholm Skavsta, Brussels Charleroi, London Stansted, Berlin Schonefeld, Bologna and Wroclaw". The carrier launched services to the Montenegrin capital in the summer of 2013 following two years of negotiations with the government. On Thursday it handled its 500.000th passenger in Montenegro since it commenced operations to Podgorica. It has expanded its network from the city each year ever since. The company previously noted its Podgorica flights "continue to perform strongly".
Ryanair offers the most capacity out of Montenegro among low cost carriers. Overall, it is third in terms of the number of seats it puts on sale from the country, behind only Montenegro Airlines and Air Serbia. Previously, the budget airline said, "We are extremely interested in including Tivat to our network as well. It is one of the airports that is very appealing to us. During the summer, flights heading to Montenegro are in demand, while during the winter, services from Montenegro are more popular, which is a good combination. Those travelling to Montenegro for a holiday on our flights usually stay for six days". According to the Montenegrin government, Ryanair has not received any subsidies or incentives and is paying full landing and handling fees in Podgorica.
Comments
Hahahahaha, I'm pretty sure Ryanair is in love with Podgorica, that must be the reason!
A lot of Montenegro traffic is using BEG to travel to the rest of Europe.
With more direct options JU will lose a lot of that.
That is also bad news for JU.
JU is by far the busiest foreign carrier in TGD.
So it will be affected a whole lot more than JP or A3.
So JP and A3 will be more affected since their starting position is much, MUCH, weaker.
LOL, JP and A3 have a minuscule part of their operations in TGD. JU is carrying loads of transfer passengers. With more direct flights JU will lose a lot of that and will become mainly an O&D carrier in Montenegro.
Boy do you seriously believe that Aegean is depending on passengers flying TGD-ATH-BLQ or TGD-ATH-STR to keep that route?
Seriously now?
Passenger numbers from Podgorica in 2017:
1. Belgrade - 293.913
2. Istanbul - 106.071
3. Vienna - 80.475
4. Ljubljana - 49.824
5. Charleroi - 36.819
6. Berlin - 35.598
7. Memmingen - 31.094
8. Milan - 30.739
9. Budapest - 25.240
10. Skavsta - 24.720
As you can see, routes operated by FR and W6 are even behind LJU. Maybe they have enough passengers to make these operations profitable but I doubt we'll see a major expansion by either FR or W6 in the future. Maybe a few routes added here and there but nothing groundbreaking.
I am sure they will aslo sell you TGD-ATH-BEG if you are willing to buy it.
The issue is though that A3 on this route transfers O&D and secondly TGD-ATH-rest of Greece and Middle East traffic.
Not passengers who want to go from MN to the rest of Europe after they fly first two hours to the wrong direction (south) to catch a flight from ATH.
A BEG-IST-LAX flight adds little to your total journey time compared to a BEG-FRA-LAX.
The backtracking eastwards is a very small part of such a long journey.
But going to Italy from BEG or TGD through ATH it actually doubles or triples your journey time.
So please, lets keep this discussion factual and reasonable.
Also connections at US airports are rarely under three hours so they add a lot of extra travelling time.
A BEG-ATH-FCO route adds 5 hours to a journey that if flown directly (BEG-FCO) lasts about an hour.
A3 network is not a threat to neither JU or YM.
YM because they don't fly anywhere near ATH or in Eastern Mediterranean region and JU because they overlap only in LCA, BEY, TLV but because they have a good relationship and codeshares they actually both benefit from each other's networks.
It's not bad news for JU as their potential passenger reduction on route losses will be covered by GoS. The same goes for YM and GoMn. JP has that many bad news that this one, if potential passenger reduction on route losses happen, is nothing comparing to else, and JP will be gone soon with or without more FR in TGD. And I will refrain to comment OU as they don't even fly to Mn and are so sad story of something tiny and bad which had potential to be shiny and big.
+1000
Slavko Kalezić likes this.
Without special agrrement (which they would never get approved) they are not allowed to fly routes between Serbia and Montenegro as both countries are out of EU
make more pressure on Dubrovnik airport in order to get more reasonable fees.
So it doesn't need to offer incentives to FR or any other airline.
Who will fly from Podgorica to Wroclaw and Berlin and from Wroclaw to Berlin to Podgorica.
It would be much wiser to focus a) on destinations with large Balkan emigration, for example Gothenburg and Luxembourg and b) countries with large tourism culture, e.g. Sweden (through Gothenburg). Germans will anyhow only fly to Mallorca so there can't be any reasonable decision behind it. And Bologna?! Seriously? How many Italians from Bologna will fly to Montenegro?
And still no flights to Tivat.. disturbing.