Low cost carriers (LCCs) now offer the most seat capacity from four markets in the former Yugoslavia and are second or third in the remaining three. Currently, budget airlines command the markets in Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, while flag carriers rule in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, the latter being the only country in the region in which two full-service airlines take the top two positions.
Following the demise of Adria, easyJet has emerged as the biggest carrier in Slovenia, ahead of Turkish Airlines. It maintains services from London Gatwick, Stansted and Berlin to Ljubljana and has expressed interest in launching additional flights to the city. It expanded its capacity to the Slovenian capital by 10%. In both Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wizz Air is the largest carrier. In Macedonia, the low cost airline continued to add seats on the market by basing a fifth aircraft in Skopje and is well ahead of second-placed Turkish Airlines and third-placed Austrian Airlines. Overall, Wizz Air has over 1.9 million seats for sale from the country this year, which is 18% more than in 2018. On the other hand, despite a slight dip in offered seat capacity this year, Wizz Air continued to maintain its position as the number one carrier in Bosnia and Herzegovina thanks to its operations from Tuzla. It is followed by Turkish Airlines in a distant second and Austrian Airlines.
Eurowings has stepped in following the collapse of Pristina Airport’s largest carrier, Germania, earlier this year and has based an aircraft in the city. As a result, the amount capacity offered by the budget carrier has grown over 100%. It is now the largest airline in Kosovo, followed by easyJet and Orange2Fly. Pristina Airport's Scheduling Manager, Driton Hyseni, recently said the government should do more to attract low cost carriers. “The time has come for us to offer greater support to airlines and the tourism industry in Kosovo, which would provide our countrymen with more convenient and affordable travel. Furthermore, such support would increase the number of foreign visitors to Kosovo, which would generate additional income and provide more jobs in the aviation industry, tourism sector and other services".
Croatia Airlines remains the biggest in its home market despite not adding any additional capacity this year. It is followed by easyJet, which only runs seasonal summer flights to Croatia, and Eurowings. The latter saw a slight decline in the amount of offered seats from the Croatian market this year. In Serbia, the national carrier remains the biggest player. It is followed by Wizz Air, which has increased capacity from the country this year, and Lufthansa, which has seen considerable growth thanks to the introduction of additional flights. Air Serbia’s Head of Network, Alliances and Fleet Planning, And Salt, said in October, “One key issue for us is the amount of competition on the market. In the past you had the legacy airlines which built up their own market and brand identity. These days you can see that development in the industry changes so quickly. You can have a new competitor coming up and really revolutionising who is carrying your customers around Europe. The sheer quantity of competition is an issue. This means you have to innovate and differentiate as an airline in order to survive”.
Montenegro is the only market in the former Yugoslavia where two flag carriers offer the most available seats. Montenegro Airlines increased its capacity by 6%, which was followed by Air Serbia. However, Ryanair, which positioned itself as the third biggest airline in the country has registered growth of 29% as it continues to expand its operations to Montenegro. The figure will further grow in 2020 as it adds three new routes to Podgorica, from Dublin, Krakow and Poznan, with more expected to be announced in the coming period.
Comments
I might be wrong but I think BEG is the only market in ex-YU where both legacies and LCCs are growing the whole year.
Trend will follow very soon in BiH, having a quiet boom too. BNX is already gearing up and catching up with other regional players of its size. Interesting times ahead.
Some years ago JU would have retreated. Now they are fighting ferociously for their piece of cake.
Anon 09.07
And what has OU done with over €130.000.000 it received from the state? How did the Croatian taxpayer benefit?
Also thanks to lack of legacy carriers in SKP prices are very expensive. Austrian is ripping people off to Vienna purely because they know that anyone that needs a connection to go somewhere has very limited choices.
JU subsidies increased not because JU needed more money but because the government decided for JU to operate unprofitable flights from INI and KVO so the comparison is not right. JU performance in BEG is getting better and better and that's what matters the most.
What I find depressing is that every time anyone dares say how Serbia is best in anything there is a sea of negative comments appearing trashing and attacking Serbia while rarely presenting any concrete facts. Really disgusting.
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/11/air-serbia-registers-busiest-october.html
OU is protected by ZAG so LCCs aren't even getting a chance at attacking them. Quite the opposite, EW is even almost completely abandoning ZAG. So what kind of fight is OU putting? They are using creative protectionist machinations to fight them off
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/11/montenegro-airlines-registers-busiest.html
Or that Croatia Airlines had its busiest April.
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/05/croatia-airlines-registers-record-april.html
So?
OU sold its LHR slots, their network is stagnating, they were kicked out of the coast, their losses are actually increasing despite ZAG's protectionist policies.
So no, you can't compare them in any way. JU on the other hand is expanding its network, is slowly replacing their 733s (ANJ with APK) is recording lower losses and is actually creating a product people are willing to pay for.
Once again, JU is the only ex-YU airline to be doing something right.
OU added nine new routes in last few years, several of them are year round and several of them are from the coast. OU already had competition in the form of Wizz Air and Easyjet from Zagreb. Both airlines failed on several routes.
JU is finally expanding after 2 and a half years of cutting routes and frequnecies left and right. I'm glad they are expanding. They still operate a regional fleet which will next year turn 30 and Boeing which have passed the age of 30.
As for financials, all are in a terrible shape, JU included with massive subsidies, apparent and hidden. So spare me the story about sound financial performance.
My candidate is: SKP-BSL . daily year round
OU on the other hand is sinking. They got €130 million in a few years, they had to sell engines, Pleso prevoz, LHR slots and still required a bailout by the government on top of being protected by ZAG from extra competition, a luxury JU or YM don't have. They lost the battle for the coast despite having the advantage of being the home carrier and having closer ties with domestic airports. Thanks to ZAG charges they are losing competition on many routes (ZRH, PRG...).
YM is a joke, they are racists who fired Serbian employees some years ago (you can find the article on here), they operate ancient planes including that Blue Air jet and the Carpatair Fokker that regularly flew for them. The only market they can realistically serve the whole year is BEG. They are amassing losses every year and they required over €20 million this year to maintain that small fleet and modest network. Mind you they are getting as much in financing as JU is which operates a fleet of 20+ aircraft.
So let me repeat myself once again, JU is the only airline in ex-YU that seems to be on the right path. Both in terms of network, operations, product and vision.
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/11/montenegro-airlines-to-acquire-e195-jet.html
Ryan bashed Wizz in SOF but Wizz has a strong grip in VAR. Not sure if FR is interested.
There's no point of limiting airline's market artificially like exyu carriers do.
But they are in deep financial troubles do I do not expect them to experiment much with new routes.
While W6 still has more pax, FR has put a very large dent into their expansion in Bulgaria.
Perfect for Lauda or even Wizz!