Air France has said is sees further growth opportunities in the region and few challenges on the market in the coming period. Thijs Komen, the General Manager for Air France, KLM and Transavia for Alps, Balkans and Central Europe, said, "In 2019 we resumed the route to Belgrade which was a festive moment. For the two months of summer, we fly to Split and Dubrovnik, since the Croatian coast is becoming more and more popular with tourists. Here, in Ljubljana, we have already increased the number of flights to thirteen weekly, flying twice per day, except on Saturdays. Growth is happening in both directions. More people are travelling to the world, but also many people are visiting the region - from both a leisure and business perspectives". He added, "The area is developing nicely, and I only see further growth possibilities in the future".
Speaking to the "Slovenia Times", Mr Komen said the Alps Region and Central Europe, within which Slovenia lies, is the fastest growing market for Air France. Going forward, the General Manager noted, "There aren’t many challenges facing us in Central Europe and the Balkan markets. Maybe infrastructure development since the airports have to keep up with the increasing volumes of passengers. There is demand for huge facility investments and renovations, which is both a challenge but also a growth opportunity". This coming summer season, Air France will serve Ljubljana and Zagreb twice daily. Services to Dubrovnik will be maintained twice weekly, while flights to Split are yet to be scheduled. In addition, KLM will continue to serve Zagreb daily and maintain eleven weekly services to Split during the peak summer months. Air France - KLM’s low cost unit, Transavia, plans to introduce new flights to the Croatian coast, from Paris Orly to Pula and from Nantes to Dubrovnik.
In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the Air France - KLM Group said, "The Air France - KLM Group strongly believes in the potential of ex-Yugoslav countries. We have a real desire to serve the region to our best. Transavia maintains sustained growth and is developing its network on departure from all its bases in France and the Netherlands to the former Yugoslavia. We also have codeshare agreements in place with Croatia Airlines and Air Serbia to Paris and Amsterdam. These agreements pave the way for further development opportunities. We are here to stay". It added, "We continue to seek new opportunities for both airlines [Air France and KLM]. In Montenegro, Air France also signed a codeshare agreement in 2014 with Montenegro Airlines for flights to Paris".
Time for them to think of launching Sarajevo, Skopje or Podgorica.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Tivat seasonally?
DeleteOr at least Transavia to Sarajevo. I don't get why there are no flights. There is a big diaspora in Netherlands, plus good onward connections via AMS.
DeleteExactly. Don't get why they don't try SJJ and/or SKP with Transavia. I'm sure they would do well, especially to SJJ.
DeleteA few years ago they put tickets on sale for AMS-SJJ for the holiday period - Christmas and New Year but they cancelled the flights and sales. Seems that tickets were not selling that well.
DeleteSJJ is an extremely expensive airport in a price sensitive market. A fatal combination if you ask me.
DeleteBuy anyway flybosnia said they would start flying to Paris in March
DeleteTIV is served with Transavia 3x weekly,to ORY.
DeleteI think they should definitely extend Dubrovnik, maybe Split! Wonder why they didn't introduce more flights to Zagreb during EU presidency, from January to June 2020?
ReplyDeleteBecause EU presidency won't bring so many passengers to ZAG as many people hope
DeleteAlmost all E.U. countries have private jets for their government officials.
DeleteThere is also OU to CDG so I think that together they can handle any extra traffic.
DeleteOnly two months in DBV and SPU? Funny, there are so many French tourists during season (which is not only July and August anymore)!
DeleteI do hope they return to Split since the tickets are not on sale yet.
DeleteHope Transavia starts those ZAG flights. A low cost alternative to Paris would be great.
ReplyDeleteLCCs are mostly a no go at ZAG.
DeleteYou won't see them in ZAG as long as AF and KL are there.
DeleteI worked for Transavia, and Transavia had talks with ZAG few years ago, and ZAG literally chased them away. Few months later Transavia started flights to Ljubljana and Rijeka (and BEG and SOF). So you can forget about Transavia to ZAG, at least for now
DeleteAnd now I saw you talk TO and ORY, not HV and AMS, which was the part of Transavia I talked about. However I am sure not even TO and ORY will happen anytime soon
DeleteAF KL won't let Transavia launch ZAG because it would primarily affect them. As there isn't much competition in ZAG they can freely operate flights using mainline.
Deletethats stil a pretty vague statement
ReplyDeletespeaking for my airport ....now that the ADP Group (Aeroports de Paris) owns 46% of TAV Airports it would be somewhat logical to share some passengers between them. For example trying to take away some transfer pax from Star Alliance. just a thought
what infrastructure challenges are they talking about? o_0 the main ones have all new airports/terminals
ReplyDeleteTransavia is also increasing BEG to six weekly in 2020 which is great. I suppose BEG does really well for them since they are using those precious slots (AMS is maxed out) to increase their presence in Serbia. AF-KL is a good alternative for Star Alliance.
ReplyDeleteNow that Wizz Air has ended Eindhoven-Nis, they could get Transavia to fly the route.
ReplyDeleteIf Wizz failed on this route why would Transavia succeed?
DeleteBecause Wizz Air was competing with FR from Weeze. Since then FR closed the base there and with it INI flights. That area is not covered at the moment. It was similar to what happened with MMX-INI when that Polish base was closed. Now it is operated with the plane from Katowice.
DeleteTransavia-KLM has a far stronger position and customer base in Holland than W6.
DeletePlus they can attract transfer passengers, unlike Wizz.
DeleteTwo weekly AMS-INI can work in summer, June to September as long as it offers convenient connections to the US.
DeleteTransavia could have made it work if it was flying to AMS and thus offer connections to KLM's network.
DeleteBut AMS is full at the moment and I doubt they would use a slot for INI when they can fly to other more lucrative destinations.
Exactly which is why they increased AMS-BEG to six weekly. I am sure once more slots are allowed in 2020 BEG will go daily. Their schedule is also pretty crazy, like a 21.40 departure from BEG and 00.10 arrival to AMS. This shows that they have enough local traffic to fill a B738 at those hours.
DeleteTransavia cancelled SOF and TIA for next summer and you expect them to start an unknown city? Come down.
DeleteThe slot situation in AMS will not be getting any better next year.
DeleteWell they are obviously doing well in Serbia if they are boosting BEG while cutting SOF which has a million more passengers than BEG. So any destination that's not working from TIA or SOF can't work from INI? That's an odd logic.
DeleteHappy Taxpayer, the slot issue is a political issue. Politicians said that in 2020 they will increase the number of allowed movements currently capped at 500.000 per year. More slots should be available. AMS is not restricted in the same sense LHR or LGW are.
DeleteCool thing about INI is that with the announced reconstruction they will be adding a single airbridge to the terminal design.
DeleteTransavia could also start Paris-INI. It's probably the largest unserved destination from Nis.
DeleteGood to see. Hope they include more new routes soon.
ReplyDeleteZadar could work, maybe.
DeleteIs AF still operating Hop to Zagreb and Ljubljana or have they upgraded the flights to Air France mainline?
ReplyDeleteIt was upgraded to mainline, mostly a mix of A318 and A319. I guess they are seeing better loads now that JP is dead.
DeleteGreat. Thanks. What about ZAG?
DeleteSorry, that was ZAG. LJU is still seeing HOP.
DeleteOh I see, good news for ZAG then. So ZAG has 3 daily CDG flights right, when OU is included?
DeleteI flew with AF from Paris to ZAG on December 10th, A318, with LF around 85%.
DeleteNope, ZAG-CDG is two daily.
DeleteOU leaves at 09.00 while AF flies at 17.50. In summer AF is moving 5 weekly flights to 12.50 so as to offer more convenient connections from North America.
AF A318 has 131 seats so there were around 115 passengers, that's not bad then. Maybe E95 would have been cheaper to operate though, it's lighter so less expensive airport charges.
Deletethey could send a daily embraer from Hop to both SKP and SJJ. Their west european and north american network is much bigger then what OS's is offering via their VIE hub
ReplyDeleteIf someone can explain me something, please, I think I don't understand something here : The guy said :"Air France will serve Zagreb and Ljubljana twice daily and Belgrade daily". What I don't understand is the following : Belgrade has AF daily flights and nothing unclear about it. Ljubljana is announced to be twice daily and nothing unclear about it. Zagreb on the other hand, has one AF flight daily, and no announcements to increase to twice daily, at least as far as I know. If they include OU flight as code-share as the second daily, than they were supposed to say twice daily to Belgrade ad well, as JU code-shares with AF as well. So either I missed info about AF going second daily to ZAG, either guy made a mistake, either something changed in code-shares either something fourth, I would appreciate if someone could clarify this to me. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI think it's a mistake.
DeleteDoes OU fly daily or double daily to CDG?
DeleteActually they should say triple daily to Belgrade since they code-share on both JU flights out of Belgrade.
DeleteDon't know about other markets but they've had some really good prices to North and South America from BEG lately.
ReplyDeleteTransavia should start PRN.
ReplyDeleteGood news for passengers and consumer in Slovenia, Serbia & Croatia.
ReplyDeleteHaven't flown AF in years. Wonder what they are like now days.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised at how successful KLM has been to Split. Launched just a few years ago and they are already up to 11x per week. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteI never understood why KLM didn't expand more in ex-Yu. There is the diaspora factor plus they would have a lot of transit passengers to the US and Canada.
DeleteKLM is present in ex-YU with code share agreements. They already have good number of transit passengers .
DeleteThe market is price sensitive so they use Transavia to bring passengers to AMS.
Delete