NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia has inaugurated flights between Belgrade and Helsinki, linking the two cities for the first time with a scheduled air service. “This is the first direct, all-year-round route between Helsinki and Belgrade. In addition, it makes Air Serbia’s connections to Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean easily accessible from Helsinki Airport”, the Director of Finavia's [Helsinki Airport operator] Route Development, Petri Vuori, said. Services between the two capitals will run three times per week. One of the passengers on board the inaugural flight was Serbian singer Marija Šerifović who claimed international recognition after winning the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki in 2007. Ms Šerifović performed at Narinkkatori Square in Helsinki to mark the inaugural flight between the two cities. Prior to the return service, guests took part in a traditional ribbon and cake cutting ceremony at Helsinki Airport, along with speeches. “We are happy to have another new airline at Helsinki Airport, opening another important direct connection between European capitals”, Finavia CEO, Kimmo Maki, said.
Neka je sa srecom
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great add for the airline. It will be a success in summer no doubt about that but let's see how it performs in winter. Congrats to JU, BEG and HEL.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, today's return flight is fully booked.
Izgleda ce u toku zime leteti 2X nedeljno,bar za sada tako stoji u rezervacionom sisremu.
DeleteSreda i Subota.
With over 30 weekly flight from HEL to Croatia, JU might get also some Pax to Croatia.
DeleteI see JU has a flight to DBV today so maybe some are connecting. I think this is great.
DeleteInteresting that AF codeshares on it.
ReplyDeleteThey are investing a lot in promotion of the route, I really think that is the right approach
ReplyDeleteWhat about codesharing on Finnair routes to Asa by Air Serbia? They have excellent network towards China, Japan.
ReplyDeleteand Seoul S.Korea
DeleteWould be nice but Etihad will not allow that. They want far east traffic tunneled through Abu Dhabi.
DeleteEY doesn't care.
DeleteFinnair will most likely launch BEG in the future. April tourism arrivals are out and the number of Chinese is impressive.
DeleteIn April their numbers grew by 56% to 10.103, so far in 2019 there were 25.005 tourists in Serbia. If this trend continues we are going to reach 200.000!!! AY is probably aware of this.
At least now we know why QR added more flights. :D
Delete...but we still don't know why Air Serbia is not launching China route!
DeleteAs it would be that simple...
DeleteIn about two years BEG will have 500.000 Chinese a year. That's when market will be large enough for non-stop flights. Until then they will be served by other airlines such as QR, FZ, TK, SU... and soon AY.
DeleteDoes anyone know the loads on the first flight to Madrid and Nice?
ReplyDeleteI was looking at it this morning and MAD was pretty full while NCE was ok. I`ll check for exact numbers tonight and let you know
DeleteThe inaugural flight from Belgrade to Madrid registered a cabin load factor of 91.7%, while the return service had a 100% load factor, according to Madrid Airport.
DeleteWow that's amazing! Thank you both so much for the information.
DeleteThat's incredible. Belgrade poyrntpot is only starting to show!!
DeleteAnd then people kept on saying how MAD would not work because Spanair failed 12 years ago. No wonder they are keeping it in winter as well. BEG will surely pass six million passengers this year! Woop woop
DeleteJust let's see what winter brings...
DeleteIt's already bringing more flights by FZ, more flights by AF... and a whole bunch of new flights by JU. Last winter was great, don't you think this one will be too? )))
DeleteI think it will be good , but honestly I still do have some doubts related to MAD.
DeleteDon't get me wrong, I would like this route to be successful but we can't judge based on the first flight and from the other side this route is the longest JU European route, tickets can't be cheap, plane is almost 7 hours on this route etc. In order this route could work you need to have during the winter either strong economy ties or strong diaspora.
Unfortunately it is not the case with MAD so therefore I have my doubts.
And I would wish more than anything that I am wrong!
Remember that the Champions League final was in Madrid, and lots of Serbians traveled there with the Air Serbia/Air Europa connection, but could take the direct flight on the way back...
DeleteHere are some stats for new routes from today:
ReplyDeleteYesterday
BEG - MAD - Y124
MAD - BEG - Y123J11
BEG - KRR - Y33
Today - KRR - BEG - Y784J
KRR weak
DeleteGoing there is but coming back is ok, especially with 4 passengers in business class.
DeleteHad someone noticed that on beg.aero by clicking on the flight from the schedule we see the type of aircraft?! Nice, so again we have all the information as it was on the old (preVinci) period.
ReplyDeleteYes, that was added a bit more than a month ago, it's a pretty cool feature.
DeleteCan anyone guess which airlines we could expact to launch BEG flights in near future?
ReplyDeleteReturn:
DeleteairBaltic
Adria for one season ... at some point.
Expand:
- Aegean goes daily or 6 weekly in 2020.
- EW finally adds something serious from BEG.
- LO goes double daily at some point.
- easyJet adds ORY or LGW.
- Vueling finally introducing a normal schedule to BEG.
- JU adding flights to CAI and BCN.
- Wizz adding third 320 at BEG.
- Red Wings adding more capacity/flights next summer, maybe 5 weekly?
These are the most probable changes in the future. If Russian and Chinese arrivals keep on growing like this then we might eventually see some exotic changes.
What about any African carrier? And could flights to Dublin be possible (AerLingus)?
DeleteEh maybe some north African carriers such as Nouvelair, mostly those that will carry Serbian holidaymakers to the seaside resorts.
DeleteI don't see Ireland as an option in the future, with or without the visa regime. Actually one airline we could add in Niki from Vienna. The market is maturing and there is more demand as more and more Serbs emigrate to Austria.
Interestingly enough, north African exports to Serbia have grown quite a bit in the period January-April 2019. Growing business links stimulate demand for air travel.
Delete2018: 20.600.000 Euros
2019: 33.000.000 Euros
Increase of 60%. Serbia exports to the region have collapsed though.
How many pax are expected in 2019 in BEG?
DeleteHopefully Ryan is given reasonable conditioned and it grows to 5 planes and over 50 destinations by 2025.
DeleteWould be cool but it would be the end of W6 in Belgrade.
DeleteAnon 21.16
DeleteMy guess is six million.
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Deleteanon 21:30
DeleteI am not quite sure. Wizz has a gigantic corporation as owner. They are doing fine on many fronts. Bologna, for example, has 5 Ryan aircrafts and 59 destinations, yet Wizz is doing just fine there. On the other hand, JU might not survive that without massive state aid.
I don't think FR would affect JU to such an extent. Serbia is not a primary market for them as it's rather limited in size and has a lot of competition (relative to its size) so there would be no point in being aggressive. I think KVO might be more appealing to FR than BEG simply because the market is not that small and there is no competition- there would be less pressure on their yields. Last year FR's finances weren't that great meaning that the next two years might be marked by more prudent business decision in order to boost both revenue and profits, especially with VIE being a costly adventure.
DeleteFR and W6 would primarily go after the same kind of passengers. Sure there might be one or two airports where they might overlap with JU but I doubt it would be anything major. Don't forget that Wizz didn't kill JU despite being quite aggressive at some point.
In a way I think JU and FR would coexist the same way JU and W6 have for the past decade or so.
Then again, I don't think we'll be seeing FR at BEG anytime soon.
TP might come back....
DeleteNaah loads were a disaster last time
DeleteRyan will come once it is offered reasonable conditions. It will probably not destroy anybody but will affect all greatly. AirSerbia project will shrink/collapse once the political/financial support is gone.
DeleteIt would be great if something listed above happen. Also, I cannot find much about cargo airlines flying BEG. Is there any improvment since Vinci took over BEG?
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I have a memory of Helsinki being written as destination in old JAT shop at Slavija hotel back in 90es. Maybe I am wrong.
ReplyDeleteNope JU never flew to HEL.
DeleteI love that one of the vabin crew members holds Avala Tower in her hand hahah
ReplyDeleteThat's not cabin crew it's Helsinki Airport ground staff. But I found it amusing too :D
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