Air Serbia has commenced a further five routes from its new base at Niš Constantine the Great Airport, in addition to the seven launched last month. The airline inaugurated flights between the south-east Serbian city and Ljubljana yesterday, linking the pair for the first time in 28 years. The route was previously maintained by Inex-Adria Airways. With over ninety passengers on board on the outbound flight, and over 100 on the inbound, the 144-seat Airbus A319 aircraft was welcomed by a traditional water cannon salute at Ljubljana's Jože Pučnik Airport. The carrier also introduced services to Friedrichshafen and Budapest yesterday, which is being followed up with flights to Salzburg and Rome today.
Serbia is extremely popular among Slovenian holidaymakers and I am sure they will eventually have a lot of success on this route. In June tourist arrivals to Nis were up by 7%.
ReplyDeleteThere will be lots of interest especially having in mind that it is offered at bus rate :)
DeleteHope INI had a good July and it passes 200.000 passengers in the first seven months.
ReplyDeleteWho will fly to Budapest?
ReplyDeletePeople. Some here were claiming how Ljubljana is empty but the loads seem to be fine.
DeleteThey claimed it was among the worst performing not that it was empty. That means other destinations are full!
DeleteHow much was the load yesterday?
DeleteLJU and BUD are the weakest. This summer flights to Germany all have over 115 passengers.
DeleteI guess it also takes time until all routes are known, so load factors will improve. As well they started the flights pretty late in summer and you just could book couple weeks before.
DeleteOn average LJU and bud have on average 50 to 70 passengers.
Deletewhat is the avg for Bologna and Salzburg?
DeleteBLQ around 70-80
DeleteMy sister flew BLQ-INI yesterday so here's some first hand info - the LF was around 60-70% and it was a very mixed crowd- Macedonians, Kosovo Albanians, there was a senior group of around 20 Italian tourists going to the spa town nearby (she speaks Italian and spoke to them) and next to her was a Greek guy continuing on to Thessaloniki via train. You can't judge just by one flight but it's a pretty good LF for such new flights, so Bologna seems like it might work out well, surprisingly enough - fairly good LF this early on.
DeleteNice, I think it might also work because there are no flights from the region so it attracts many. BLQ was the destnation I was most worried about but seems like it might do well.
DeleteYeah I was thinking the same, but clearly BLQ was a very clever choice. The Albanian diaspora is definitely a factor.
DeleteIt is real shame we do not have Bologna from Belgrade.
DeleteINI-SZG: ~ 85, SZG-INI: ~ 120
DeletePitty that AS not have any E170-190 or crj...
ReplyDeleteExactly, but is there some minimal a/c number of seats rule in contract? GoS and JU should renegotiate that number, it would do magic with LF.
DeleteThey had a spare A319 which needed to be utilised year round. PSO from INI is a fantastic deal for JU.
DeleteTalking of great things, I see JU is selling €35 one way tickets to Berlin this winter. Supposedly only a few seats are offered at that price but its still great. Maybe they saw the benefit of lower fares from INI.
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