From what I hear it will be Gatwick.

Which London airport will they fly to?

Finally a flight to Europe. We will see how it works out.

Out of all the main unserved routes from SJJ, I think London will be most difficult to fill because of visas.

LGW

London-Middle East is one of the most lucrative markets out there. I think those are the passengers they are targeting.

I;m wondering what the price will be like.

by a no-name airline? competing with Emirates, Qatar and Etihad. Eh Mujo!

With so many nonstop flights from the Gulf to London, why would anyone fly via Sarajevo. Even Jazeera Airways is starting Kuwait City - Gatwick.

Well Shiddi Tourism which is filling up seats from Saudi Arabia to SJJ seems to be quite well known over there.

If the price is right, who knows.

*I'm

I'm surprised Wizz's flights didn't work out.

So they are starting flights in less than a month and tickets aren't on sale yet. Great work.

Oh good the flights are for Umrah. Here I was hoping it was for the local population.

If they do start Paris, Rome and perhaps Frankfurt, in addition to London, then SJJ will have quite good coverage in Europe.

+1

It's operating nonstop from Sarajevo to London so it is serving the local population.

I have a feeling it will be cheaper to fly Riyadh-Sarajevo-London, then Sarajevo-London.

Visas are a big issue for this route.

wait til somebody starts examing who is the majority owner of this airline. Bosna or some Gulf country. not sure if they will keep the rights to fly ...

Which London airport did BA used to fly to Sarajevo?

:D

I really do wonder how they are performing financially. They do have owners with deep pockets but there is a limit to everything.

Flybosnia just opened an office on Regent Street in London.

FlyBosnia is a private company so it can be in 100% ownership by any foreign entity.

Gatwick

Fancy

I don't think visas are such a massive issue. I mean there are flights from Belgrade, Pristina, Skopje, Ohrid, Podgorica, Tivat, Tirana to London and the local population in all those cities needs a visa for the UK.

Very small Bosnian diaspora in the UK and almost non existent interest from British tourists to visit B&H.
And most importantly the visa issue which I don't see being resolved any time soon.

Still one of the only European capital cities without flights to Brussels.

Well it is if you are a very religious Bosniak! ;)

Wouldn't it have made sense to first launch FRA where there is a big Bosnian diaspora?

B&H is not an EU member so I don't see that as such an issue.

That's how many airline targeting transfer passengers work.

Larger markets and larger gastarbeiter traffic too.

If they are successful in carrying transfer passengers to the UK from the Middle East, Sarajevo Airport's number will rise significantly and it will probably overtake Podgorica, because transfers are counted twice :)

I read maybe last year on here that London is the busiest unserved route from Sarajevo.

Anonymous at 09:17 what are you talking about?
If it is an airline with a European AOC it most definitely has to abide by the 50% plus one share ownership and effective control by Europeans rules!

for flights into EU ...

Could these flights have some sort of an impact on any ex-Yu airline? Did OU or JU carry transfer passengers from Sarajevo to London?

The airline is not about serving Bosnians, it is about facilitating Middle Easterners travel and investments. So it is London for now.

With all due respect to FlyBosnia, I think the company is so insignificant to any other European airline that they would care about who has effective control.

That route performed ok but it didn't have 90%+ load factor required by Wizz Air for any route to survive.

Doesn't matter, BNX has flights to CRL so there is some demand.

Limited diaspora, visas, limited tourist numbers, no possibility for connections since Flybosnia doesn't have any codeshares or interlines, few business links... Not sure this route will turn out well.

Definitely not JU since London departs at 10.25 while SJJ operates at noon. I think OS stands to lose the most. Not a good period for their ex YU operations these days.

FlyBosina business plan outlined:

- We will place planes in the Balkans. This way we connect Middle East and the UK/Scandinavia with convenient narrowbodies, with a stopover which is for many much easier than flying 5+ hours on a narrowbody direct flights (QR service to Helsinki, EY to Dusseldorf...).
- We will also help easier bringing Arabian people to Bosnia to spend their holidays. We do not really care about locals and their needs.For us It is just a bunch of poor people who rarely can afford to fly. We did not even bother translating the website to the local language.
- We will target Umrah travelers, but our Jeddah service will remain seasonal (!)
- We will use aeroplanes from the antiquity. (Their two Airbuses are made in 2003 and 2003, and the 737-400 as addition is at least 5 years older)
- If we have frequent issues with fog and have to cancel flights, we will require Bosnian government to cover it for us along with passenger compensation claims.
- We are not, and have no aspirations of becoming a "national airline", "flag carrier" or whatever like that.

Jesus I hope they are not serious about developing transfer business as SJJ can't handle it.

What B737-400 do they have? And also Jeddah is not seasonal.It's scheduled once per week for the whole of winter.

I do agree that it's unacceptable that they don't have their website in the local language.

Anonymous at 09:27 it is completely irrelevant WHERE it flies to. It has a European AOC, end of story.
If you have no idea what you are writing about refrain from posting misinformation.

@9.29 except JP and OS :D

+1

"We did not even bother translating the website to the local language." :D :D

Anonymous at 09:36
+1000
That pretty much sums up the situation.

it has a European AOC for now ....

It's really sad to see the ratio of flights to Middle East / Turkey vs flights to rest of Europe from Sarajevo. Even within the region it's only connected to 3 airports (BEG, ZAG and LJU) whereas FlyBosnia alone has 3 Saudi Arabian destinations. I just don't want to see Bosnia become an Arabian island in the heart of Europe, more reliant and in tune with a region it doesn't geographically and culturally belong to.

TK must be trembling at the thought of Fly Bosnia's one weekly flight into Jeddah. :D

We can not possibly now if those flights by W6 were making money. If the tickets were very cheap no amount of load factor would save it.

@Anon 9:28 You are absolutely right, it was discussed so many times here. This airline doesn't thing about locals need in SJJ, they have different agenda.

That was JU's strategy in 2015-2016. Essentially the local passengers subsidize the transfer passengers.
Clearly the Bosnian passengers and their needs are not a priority for this airline.

FlyBosnia does not have a B737--400.

Anonymous at 09:47
When in a hole stop digging!
If they do not have a European AOC they can not fly anywhere in Europe from SJJ. Also if they don't have one they cant be part of B&H bilaterals.
Simple?

+1000
These people shouldn't be allowed to have that name, alluding that it's the national carrier when they're blatantly disregarding the Bosnian people, their travel needs and not even bothering to have Bosnian as a language option on their site. Our national carrier, Air Serbia, are certainly not saints by any means, but I know quite a few Bosnians in Sarajevo who are appalled at how it's all been playing out at FlyBosnia. Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Italy, remainder of the region etc etc would all have been better choices for Bosnian passengers than London. The company has no shame in announcing it is clearly being introduced for Arabian connecting passengers.

it can be revoked ....

Anything but Luton.

When will tickets go on sale?

Anon09:05...cemu ta glupost sa Eh Mujo?

With Arab money anything can work.

Dubioza Kolektiv!

Sarajevo had flights to Brussels that were suspended after a brief run in H1 of 2018. I guess it didn't work out even though it costed 80 euros on average for a roundtrip.

Sarajevo is a huge market, there is certainly demand

Most locals that fly to London use Zagreb.

It says in the text
"The carrier has said tickets for the new route will be on sale "within the next few days" "

aaaaa :)
https://www.b92.net/biz/vesti/region.php?yyyy=2019&mm=08&dd=23&nav_id=1581274

Sarajevo -- Australijski biznismen Kristofer Gabriel, bivši direktor aviokompanije FlyBosnia, postao je državljanin BiH.
Gabriel je godinama u braku sa bivšom počasnom konzulkom BiH u Australiji Đemilom Talić-Gabriel.

Đemila je i uspešna poslovna žena, poreklom iz Bosanske Dubice.
On važi za jednog od 100 najuticajnijih ljudi na svetu u svetu telekomunikacija, a zahvaljujući braku sa Đemilom počeo je da se interesuje za investiranje u BiH.

Zbog iskustva i poslovnih veza osnivač i investitor FlyBosnije Al Shiddi grupacija za direktora je imenovala upravo Gabriela.

Ovaj bračni par ima i fondaciju koja pomaže ženama i deci bez roditelja. Pored toga imaju kuću u Neumu gde često odmaraju.

Except they forgot to check he is no longer the CEO of Fly Bosnia
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/06/flybosnia-ceo-resigns.html

It's Luton.

Unfortunately it will be Luton :(

They didn't, they say he is "bivsi direktor"...

TZL=LTN didn't work for Wizz so I don't think SJJ-LTN will work for FlyBosnia.

Serbia has the same limited diaspora and visas are needed, so what?

They will go on sale today. They are already on the site but when you select it it says "no tariffs available".

It doesnt matter who is the owner, and hence they can have that name without issues. Who cares who is the owner, wtf?

Who does the maintenance on the Flybosnia aircrafts?

They had 80% LF which is not enough for LCC

Anon 09.55 why are you singling out JU when that's a model that's used throughout the world? Furthermore transfer business at this point is lucrative for JU and luckily JU flies to places where Serbs want to go unlike Air Bosnia which flies to random airports in the Middle East like Gassim or Manama.

I would not go as far as say that Sarajevo is a huge market but it'd of a decent size.

They do it in Sofia. Not sure which company.

People care when it's JU's or JP's owners that need trashing so why should Fly Bosnia be any different, wtf?

Say what you will but at least they are following through with their plans.

Lufthansa technik

So much negativism in comments. It is great that Sarajevo will have additional routes to Europe, regardless who travels on these flights and if there is Saudi money behind this airline

Serbia is a much bigger market, and also JU offers transfers from TGD, TIV, TLV... that all help.

It is my mistake trying to argue with an idiot!

Anon 09:04 there are probably 100 direct flights from ME to London, all of them to more suitable airports than Luton. I doubt anyone would choose to waste his time in SJJ.

And who does it in SJJ?

@9,55am

It still is JU stratergy.

Transfer pax help fill flights where there is some form of demand however not enough for the O&D demand to sustain the route.

Tax payers are funding the increasing connectivity of their local airport as well as the reduced ticket prices of the increased competition the local airline creates.

Luton is a bad choice of airport but overall I'm glad SJJ is getting a new European route.

Please show the proof for "Tax payers are funding the increasing connectivity of their local airport"

A: Let's start an airline to connect ME to EU via an airport in CEE. What airport would make a good transfer hub choice?
B: One with almost no fees like Tuzla.
A: Let's show them our out of the box thinking and do something completely opposite. What is the most expensive airport in that region?
B: Sarajevo is very expensive.
A: Great! Sarajevo it is!

They do it in Zagreb. Both aircrafts were on C-check in Zagreb.

Such a mistake to fly to Luton. Many like me would prefer an indirect flight.

I guess you must of missed the news of 21 new routes JU has launched this season?

In case you missed it, JU has this season launched and relaunched from BEG 9 routes and opened a base in INI flying to 12 destinations.

Fly Bosnia does their maintenance in ZAG while Trade Air does it in BEG. lol

Air Serbia does not offer or have any transfer passengers at INI. New routes launched from Belgrade are not any proof for claim that tax payers are funding the increasing connectivity of BEG.

Sorry for not being on topic, but does anyone by any chance know what is the fastest, easiest way to get to Shenzen, China? We have Chinese visas secured and hypothetically the fastest way would be to fly to Hong Kong, but I have heard different information on how complicated it is to get from Hong Kong into mainland China...from no problem at all for foreign nationals to significant problems regardless. Otherwise most flights go via Beijing with a long layover there and these are all at least two stops.

It's not easy to connect from London via Zagreb to Sarajevo since OU sold their landing slots at Heathrow.It is only possible on a Wednesday, due to the timings

Hong Kong, definitely. I don't know if something changed because of current events but most convenient way was to take a ferry from Honk Kong airport directly. So you land there, you don't pickup baggage, go directly to ferry counter. Buy ticket, they will take luggage for you and put in the ferry. When you take off from ferry in Shenzhen, luggage will wait you there.

I forgot, name of the Shenzhen port is Shekou, it is in Nanshan district.

https://www.hongkongairport.com/en/transport/mainland-connection/ferry-transfer.page#2
http://indiansinshenzhen.com/ferry-service/ferry-between-shekou-and-hong-kong-international-airport/

The subsidies that the state gives to JU and are reported to their financial results prove that tax payers are funding the increasing connectivity of BEG.

Not sure where you want to fly from but KLM and China Southern both offer connections via AMS but of course we only fly from SPU,ZAG,BEG or DBV(HV) in this region.

I was utilizing those flights from CRL frequently (at least 5 round trips), and flights were usually packed (to the last percentile, no jokes!) - both on a friday evening inbound flight to SJJ and monday evening outbound flight from SJJ. Flights were super cheap - but it was really hard to purchase tickets online. For example, TUI website requires you to provide a (local, BEL) phone number, and at the time I had a NL number. It didnt let me complete the reservation, since it was popping 'invalid number' error. I had to call the TUI customer service - and yes, in the TUI CS, they were aware of this problem. Their solution? Put TUIs (Belgian) phone number when you purchase the ticket. My friends have also had this problem. That was super annoying.

I actually like TUI, it sucks they backed off :(