wow

So they will have almost the fleet the size of Montenegro Airlines by the end of the year.

They have been talking about "securing slots" for months now. Time to actually start flying.

It's good news for Sarajevo Airport which will grow passenger numbers.

Where are they getting the money from?

They plan Moscow? Is there really demand? I'm sure Aeroflot would have started flights if there was.

Saudi Arabia.

Top destinations from Sarajevo that people transfer to:

1. Kuwait
2. London
3. Copenhagen
4. Frankfurt
5. Amsterdam
6. Zurich
7. Paris
8. Ankara
9. Chicago
10. Berlin

Let's wait and see if this actually materializes.

There was some Russian airline that started flights to Sarajevo a few years ago but they cancelled the route just a week after it started.

No Saudi city in sight...

Anyone know from who they will be getting the planes?

Well a Russian airline will start flying from Moscow to Banja Luka this year. Perhaps there is more demand then one would think.

Yea, that sounds like a very strange route.

That list shows that traffic really needs to develop from Bosnia if so many people have to transfer to get to Frankfurt, Paris or Zurich.

Will they become an IATA member? They won't be able to codeshare or make any agreements with other airlines if they don't.

Shiddi has the largest mall in Bosnia, hotels and business offices, along with agencies which bring tourists from gulf

That was really what made B&H Airlines valuable. Anyone that could have bought them would automatically have had an IOSA certificate and IATA membership.

They are going to make more money on the Middle Eastern flights for tourists than flights like Frankfurt and Stockholm.

Shiddi is already promoting Flybosnia on their Saudi social media accounts and the amount of people responding to these offers to Sarajevo has really surprised me.

What's with the craze from Kuwait?

We will see if this airline will be of no use to locals.

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Website is still under construction... if they plan to start flying soon they need to put tickets on sale.

Grand plans but the airline industry is very difficult to navigate and I'm not sold they will succeed.

At least they seem to be serious.

My guess is they will first start flying to Saudi Arabian cities as they are already selling tour packages with flights in Saudi Arabia and then in late summer add a few European routes.

+1

It is long process before obtaining a slot,especially if they are looking for specific times of day. A lots of negotiating is needed.

*any

Probably Aercap as well (or some leasing company) if they have signed a LoI.

The one thing they don't have to worry about is too much competition at SJJ particularly to western European cities. Hope they make it.

Which airline do most people from Sarajevo transfer on to reach those European cities?

Interesting that Chicago is number one destination in North America.

@ 9.16 Bosnia is very popular with Kuwaiti tourists. There were nonstop flights between Kuwait and Sarajevo in last few years.

@ 9.23 Lufthansa and Austrian but I would not exclude Turkish Airlines either, even if it requires backtracking.

I hope they leave this special EYOF livery on the plane. It looks much better than the bland white and fluorescent yellow colors.

Good luck Sarajevo! This could really be its big break.

I agree. The original livery is so uninspiring. Especially now that they will have several planes, it's unfortunate they barely have any colour on them.

Is the travel from the Middle East seasonal? Do they come mostly during summer or is there year round demand?

Unlikely, they are focused on transferring tourists from the Arabia countries to Bosnia.

I just don't get why more European airlines don't fly to Sarajevo.

@ Anonymous 9:09

That was Moskovia Airlines from Zhukovsky Airport :D They have gone bust since.

B&H Airlines were members of IATA!

You are right and I fear they will realise that quite soon and end up just flying to the Middle East.

I would wait at least a year to see how this tuns out before giving any of my money to them.

Yep. You need to pass the safety audit each year and fulfill a few other criteria to be a member. That's why they were able to codeshare with Air Serbia.

It is very seasonal. Reason why there are almost no flights to the Middle East in winter except for Dubai and that's down from three daily to three weekly.

Anonymous at 09:32
Very expensive charges AND difficulty during the winter of maintaining your flight schedule due to low visibility from low clouds and fog.

+1

But is it so much more expensive than other airports in the region? Though I guess if the prices are the same, the yields to Sarajevo are probably lower.

Qatar leti cetiri puta sedmicno i zimi.

I don't think this will end well. A319 is large for OU and JU once summer season is over, it is probably the same with SJJ and maybe even worse since market is much smaller.
They should have gone for 2 A319 for Middle East and 2 E75 for European flights.

I hope people don't take this the wrong way but will they be able to find pilots? I'm not sure how many qualified pilots from Bosnia actually reside in Bosnia.

Great news. Wish all the best for SJJ.

It will be of no use to the local population if they only fly to the Middle East so hopefully those Europe flights start soon too.

I doubt this will work out and that they will take those 3 planes.

I don't think there is much demand to/from Moscow especially as there is barely any economic links.

Frankfurt will definitely work but I have my reservations about London? We need visas to the UK. Tuzla - London didn't work out for Wizz Air, so not sure Fly Bosnia will make it work but let's wait and see.

It is good if Fly Bosnia venture works. No taxpayer money is involved into it. There is no harm to any of us if Fly Bosnia does not make it.

I like the plans so far. They seem to be serious investors with some long term plans.

I'm interested too see which airport in London they will select.

Well as you can see on the list someone posted above, London is the second most unserved route from Sarajevo. It didn't work out from Tuzla perhaps because there is less travel from that region to London but from Sarajevo I think it could work.

Didn't BA used to fly to Sarajevo?

Great! Just tweak the livery a bit.

The Mostar charters could be lucrative.

Yes from 2006 until 2008.

Official reason they suspended flights "high fuel prices"

They need to catch up to Podgorica.

National airline can work in Bosnia. It's just a question of having a professional and realistic management.

It's a shame that Sarajevo didn't have the same scenario as Skopje after the national airline collapsed.

I think they need smaller capacity planes if they want took make this work.

Agree. Especially for Sarajevo-Europe flights.

Any pics of the interior?

You have some here in the gallery.
https://www.klix.ba/biznis/ukrcali-smo-se-u-airbus-a319-flybosnia-u-sarajevu-spremna-docekuje-prve-putnike/190208093

It is good that they already have charter demand. It is a good way to make the airline sustainable, especially at the beginning.

Thank you. Looks good actually.

I think that's the same year they suspended Belgrade and Pristina too.

Good luck, FlyBosnia! Bosnia and Herzegovina is underestimated.

I really hope this works. BiH needs a strong airline.

But no dedicated business class seats. Just standard economy.

So Wizz needed 5 years to have 4 planes in Skopje with millions and millions of subsidies yet Fly Bosna will have 4 planes in Sarajevo within months with no support. This is not going to end well.

If they offer competitive prices from SJJ to any place in Europe, even matching Star Alliance on any intra-European route to a penny, they will be more than able to operate and survive. I suppose the fuel hedging issues won't be a problem for them.

Most rational comment today.

What it needs is for Sarajevo to lower its fees.

And work on new terminal is ongoing. It will be a good year for SJJ.

Hope so because January started with a decline in pax numbers.

Uniforms and crew look nice.

They could secure hajj flights from SJJ. Turkish Airlines profits from these each year. They even send A330 to SJJ.

By how much did it decrease?

It's nice to see a lot of aviation news coming from Bosnia lately.

1%
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/02/sarajevo-airport-starts-year-with.html

Bravo!

Exactly. New terminal in Sarajevo, possible Ryanair flights to Mostar, Banja Luka developing, Tuzla opening new terminal soon.

Very good news all round.

Yes but livery is horrible.

I hope it's more successful then the other airlines in B&H.

February will be strong because of EYOF.

Bravo BiH!

The only difference is that Wizz Air is expanding all over Europe and is spreading itself thin while these guys are completely devoted to Bosnia. That is why it will thrive. Also, let's get real, Bosnia has much more demand than Northern Macedonia. BiH has four active international airports all served by major and internationally known airlines.

That's true,but wizz is budget airline,and besides,Sarajevo has only 1million pax,so much bigger opportunity to grow.

Well,germania fell apart and they had chiefly A319 fleet. So,maybe they find someone of those pilots.
For sure,it's better for them to work in Europe comparing to Asia (e.g)

Hilarious.

I can tell you right now that Bosnia is becoming more and more advanced when it comes to aviation.
4 operating airports, flourishing passenger figures, investments and continuous improvements.
A big applause for its government and good luck to the new airline.
The current fleet might reach Air Serbia levels one day.

At least BiH traffic is organic and not only based on heavy subsidies.

They should first aim to reach Croatia Airlines' fleet size.

Flights to Mostar, Banja Luka and Tuzla are all subsidized.

Yes and no.
If you compare SKP and OHD traffic, it is 100% subsidised.
Airports in BiH are partially subsidised.
Why do you think Macedonia has such figures even higher than Slovenia? Thanks.

I have been closely tracking news about the Canada's newest ULCC startup Jetlines. Drawing parallel to FlyBosnia, they hired corporate staff, obtained AOC (or are still in the process of ), secured slots at hte airport etc. and most importantly signed contract for the lease of (I think) two A320s. However, they are not announcing delivery date, they'll get their hand on them probably couple of weeks before the scheduled startup which might be at least 6 months away. On contrary, FlyBosnia have a leased plane at the cost of probably several hundreds thousands of dollars sitting on the tarmac mostly collecting dust. In this Klix text, they say they even changed all seats, did some major maintenance, overhauled the engines!!! Now, this might have been done by the lessor, but even if that's the case I don't think AerCap gave them all of this for free until they start making money.

Something here doesn't add up...

It is too small of an airline to operate two different types of aircraft and have two different sets of crews.
What JU, OU, JP and YM are doing is NOT efficient and it shows on their financial results.

Yes but how many of Germania's crews were PRN based instead of based in Germany?
I am not sure that someone will leave their lifestyle in a German major city to migrate to Sarajevo.

Well,according to law in Bosnia,you cannot get an AOC without an aircraft. Furthermore,you need to take some test flights within the country to prove you have functional aircraft. I think such law is applied internationally, so it's not that possible to obtain AOC without aircraft. And I guess you cannot make any deal with airports without aircraft and/or AOC eventually.

I think they wont even manage to reach YM's fleet size.

It will be somewhere between YM and OU. But, if you have 10 319, then ASK capacity will be much higher. It's all a matter of time.

@SM

When you say "obtained AOC (or are still in the process of )", you don't see crucially large difference between these two statuses?

I checked Jetlines site and so far they submitted operations manuals, which apparently is a major milestone in the process. After this comes training manuals etc. For both of these they probably had to select AC type, maybe even sign the contract, make some payments but they didn't have to HAVE plane in possession. I presume they won't get the actual licence before they do, but all this work ahead of time they can do without one. What they also did in preparation for their scheduled service is that they signed whole bunch of contracts with airports, ground handling companies, sales distribution, payment processing etc. etc. (see https://jetlines.ca/2019/).

Listen, I don't pretend to fully understand regulatory framework in BiH, but I can't imagine it being much different than anywhere else.

If nothing else, FlyBosnia has a plane sitting at SJJ for which they get invoice from AerCapy on a regular basis. It has the AOC but not flying and not even selling tickets as far as I know (except maybe for few charters that might occur in Summer). A319 is not a toy you buy in the convenience store; leasing it is no kids game so that you can have it sit and collect dust. If you are serous business you would want to reduce that time to the max, because that's one of your major expenses. Again, I'm not buying it. I wish I'm wrong but in my mind no investor can expect to recoup this kind of investment within reasonable time, especially not the one operating in economically very poor region such as BiH. There must be something else here or we know what the end-result will be.

I think that time slot between aircraft takeover (Dec 22nd) and issuing of AOC (Jan 12th?) was pretty much tight and effective.
On the other hand, I can agree with you that whole this period after January 13th is only cost-consuming and that we already should see some revenue created, at least from charter flights.

I think that time slot between aircraft takeover (Dec 22nd) and issuing of AOC (Jan 12th?) was pretty much tight and effective.
On the other hand, I can agree with you that whole this period after January 13th is only cost-consuming and that we already should see some revenue created, at least from charter flights.

SM, they have probably expected longer procedure for getting an AOC,as Bosnia is usually slow regarding paperwork,issuance of permits,documents etc.
And maybe that price they pay monthly isn't that high. It may be that A319 was cheaper for leasing as they needed to apply brand new seats and make some additional engine maintenance which is not included in leasing price,apparently. In addition to that, shiddi has steady income to cover that price for a few months.

They should do flights for Air Serbia for example Sarajevo- Belgrade second daily. Or they could fly Kraljevo -Istanbul. There was once talk about charters from Saudi Arabia to Belgrade where tour organisators could not find an airline to do the job. This is Flybosnias chance - they really have to be creative if they want to succeed !
Mike from Munich.

And they should do with A330, because they will attract passenger with comfort!
Jesus, completely new airline, founded by Saudis in Bosnia, with no operational flight, should start flights between Kraljevo and Instanbul. I don't know what are you using, but I would like some of it.

Maybe you are right but if it was my money in question I'l like that plan landing the day i absolutely must have it and I would do everything in my power that the first flight with paying customers is very next day. Now, i know that this would be impossible to do but some things like web-site, destinations etc. are all in place so that I loose as little money as possible.

Hopefully you are right and they got a killer deal for it but somehow I doubt it. Brand new customer, not associated with any big players, ordering single ac - not a lot of leverage to negotiate good price. Shiddi probably has means to finance all of but and that's not an issue, but nobody likes loosing money forever and the approach here tells me that people involved seem a bit amateurish for this to remain sustainable business in the long run.

Again, for the sake of people employed at FlyBosnia, SJJ and general flying public I hope I'm not correct.

Why are you so angry ? Whats so difficult to understand ?
BH Air once actually flew to Belgrade daily with A319 codesharing with Air Serbia . Also if a Serbian airline is allowed to fly charters from Banja Luka to Athens and Antalya then an airline from Bosnia should also be allowed to fly Kraljevo to Istanbul. Same right is for all airlines. And what is the problem with an airline that is founded by Arabs in Bosnia ? Have you forgotten that Air Serbia was founded by Arabs from Abu Dhabi ?

As i already said, Flybosnia will never be a success if it pays for aircraft that collect dust instead of flying. Cooperating with neighbouring airlines and countries will bring cash and profitability. There is no way around that fact !

Mike from Munich

^ Even Aegean does Croatia-Germany charters .

Don't think Embraers could make it to Saudi for ex.

Aegean [EU] Croatia [EU] Germany [EU].

FlyBosnia [BiH] Kraljevo [Serbia] Istanbul [Turkey], all non-EU.

Air Serbia (SRB) Banjaluka (BiH) Antalya(TUR) Athens(GR)

Uvjeren sam da znaju sta rade.

Mislim da dobro znaju sta rade.

BH Air is from Bulgaria....

Besides that, a company owned by Saudis is a Saudi - Arabian company and according laws do apply. Completely different situation than in if it was Bosnian or EU or even a turkish company.....

+1

Connection flights are the key here.