Lufthansa group member airlines plan to expand their operations to Belgrade this summer in an attempt to strengthen their position on the Serbian market and respond to growing demand. Austrian Airlines will introduce an additional three weekly flights from its hub in Vienna to Nikola Tesla Airport for a total of 23 weekly services. As a result, the airline will maintain up to four daily flights between the two cities on selected days. The carrier competes directly against Air Serbia on the route, which plans to run double daily flights between Belgrade and Vienna this coming summer, as has been the case for the past few years. "During the last decades, Austrian Airlines has been a reliable partner for business and leisure travellers and has continually increased its service between Belgrade and the Austrian hub in Vienna. We will serve up to four flights a day or 23 flights per week between Belgrade and Vienna this summer. Therefore, Austrian Airlines offers the ideal connection between Serbia and the dense Austrian network. Instead of responding to the strong competition, which is strong in every market, we rather focus on our USPs (Unique Selling Proposition): One is our hub in Vienna. We offer flights from Vienna onwards to around 130 destinations worldwide", the company told EX-YU Aviation News.
Swiss International Air Lines plans to add an extra three weekly departures from Zurich to Belgrade. Whereas the airline maintained between eighteen and 21 weekly services between the two cities for the majority of last summer, it now plans to run 21 weekly flights for the entire summer season. “Our growth is based on our market analysis that identified a great demand for Serbia. The market is very interesting for Swiss, as there is a big community from Serbia living in Switzerland. Therefore, there is a high demand for flights”, the airline said. Swiss faces stiff competition on its flights to Belgrade from Air Serbia, which has also been growing its services to Zurich over the past year. It will run up to eighteen weekly rotations between the two cities during the summer of 2020.
Lufthansa’s low cost offshoot Eurowings will resume flights between Stuttgart and Belgrade this year. The airline will maintain three weekly services between the two cities starting May 21 with a mix of Eurowings, Germanwings and leased ČSA Czech Airlines Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft. It will compete directly against Air Serbia on the route, which will maintain six weekly rotations to Stuttgart over the summer. The Lufthansa subsidiary will return to the Serbian market following a year-long hiatus. Previously, it only served the two cities during the peak summer months of July and August, however, flights have now been scheduled until the end of the season in late October, with tickets for its 2020/2021 winter network yet to be put on sale.
So 3 more to VIE and 3 more to ZRH plus the EW Service which you never know how long it lasts.
ReplyDeleteAn LCC option is needed on this route.
DeleteI mean to Vienna.
Delete+1
DeleteFR or W6 entering this route would greatly reduce ticket prices!
Austrian and Jat united quite effectively to kick out Niki on the route when their duopoly was in danger some 10 years ago.
DeleteI believe we can be almost sure that BEG will rise above 7 milions in 2020. Will probably be double than SPU or ZAG which will be 2nd and 3rd biggest in EX-YU. Good done Vinci and Air Serbia!
DeleteWow so on some days 6 daily flights in total between Belgrade and Vienna.
ReplyDeleteConsidering the number of Serbs in Vienna, distance between the cities, their size, and transit potential of VIE, but BEG as well to some extent, I actually think it could be even more. If much smaller ZAG, which is much closer, and offers practically no connections can have VIE up to 5 times per day, BEG could make it even more. But even 6 is respectable number. Glad about.
DeleteTook OS forever to add these morning departures. They were very much needed to cut transfer times from North America. Before you had to sit for around 4 hours waiting for your flight to Belgrade, now it's around an hour.
DeleteAs for JU, I think they can add a departure at some 12.40 like ZRH. They can offer connections from Rome, Abu Dhabi, Moscow and so on.
That is excellent connecting options.
ReplyDelete*A is truly the leader of all alliances in our region.
Even though they ate grossly overrated in my opinion.
Delete*are sorry
DeleteI must say I've flown five times with Lufthansa from BEG and they were NEVER on time. Always delayed inbound plane.
DeleteIt's interesting that LH group will have more flights to Zurich and Vienna than Air Serbia. The fact that JU is avoiding Munich like the plague would indicate they don't see themselves as being cooperative against LH group.
ReplyDeleteThat is great news for travelers.
ReplyDeleteBut it is also bad news for JU.
With growing network there will be more transfer passengers for JU on these flights.
DeleteAnon at 09:02
Delete+1
But prepare to be attacked for stating the obvious.
Bad news for Lufthansa group.
DeleteLol
DeleteAnonymous 9 January 2020 at 09:05
DeleteJU's transfer pax more often than not pay loss making instead of profitable ticket prices.
It is not the case only with Ju but with any other airline
DeleteNot really Anon 09:39.
DeleteMost major European hubs and their airlines are making profits by transport passengers.
JU needs to offer really low prices to attract them.
The profit collected from transfer passengers is always smaller than from P2P pax and it is the case with every airline.
DeleteTry to book flight BEG-FRA-BCN as connecting flight and BEG-FRA and FRA-BCN as 2 separate flights and you will see huge price difference for the same flights.
In the case of JU it is logical they need to offer certain lower prices on the destinations recently opened in order to promote them (HEL for example). And it is also the policy of almost every airline opening new destinations.
Once these destinations get popular the prices will be surely increased, but the time is needed these destinations to mature.
JU continues to offer the lower prices for connecting pax in every country of our region, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon and Israel.
DeleteI believe that if ever JU is allowed to operate in PRN it will be a massive success!
That is great for these passengers but not so great for JU. It makes up those loses with higher ticket prices for BEG O&D travelers plus of course state subsidies.
Please let me know the reasons why JU would be flying on the routes that are not profitable for them.
DeleteWe saw that JU axed WAW, VAR, AUH as they were not profitable or it took too long to get there and back. By using the same logic BEY, SOF, TLV would be axed if they could not bring enough money to JU.
Obviously it is not the case. TIA even got increased now Adria is gone.
Also let' not forget that LCA, ATH or SKG are not only there for transfer passengers. There is a lot of local traffic here
If JU wasn't flying routes that are not profitable for them it would have been PROFITABLE!
DeleteJU is following the same strategy that most state owned airlines followed in the past.
Try to fill seats and don't worry about costs.
And how do you know the routes are not profitable?
DeleteMagic ball?
"JU is following the same strategy that most state owned airlines followed in the past.
DeleteTry to fill seats and don't worry about costs."
This coming from the same people that complain JU tickets are too expensive :)
Anon at 10:36
DeleteIt is very easy to conclude that some of JU's routes are unprofitable.
No need of a crystal ball.
You just see the airline's results since its launch.
Not a single year has it made a profit.
So if all of their routes were profitable so would the airline.
Yo can not operate only profitable routes and at the same time lose money year after year.
Simple enough for you to understand?
Not necessarily, routes might not be loss making but they are not making enough money to cover other costs that are not related to operations. This is something anyone in the industry knows. I guess you are the one who doesn't understand things.
DeleteLOL, all routes have to share some of the administrative costs.
DeleteYou really have no idea what you are talking about right?
It is like saying that a taxi driver is making a good living if he doesn't have to calculate the cost of the car or his taxes!
You are confusing accounting terminology, maybe research it before posting about it here. A route being in the black means that there is enough revenue to cover operational expenses of the flight. Salaries of secretaries or promotional material for a fair do not get tied to a routes performance. They are qualified separately.
DeleteUnfortunately Frankfurt still remains double daily with LH.
ReplyDeleteIt could have been increased to triple daily as MUC
Essentially triple daily considering JU has one flight per day.
DeleteMUC is much more convenient for EU connections, and the double daily to FRA covers all the North American (morning) and Far East (afternoon) connections, so I don't really see the benefit of a third daily to FRA.
DeleteOver the last 2-3 years LH is focusing on MUC far more than FRA.
DeleteThe reason is that FRA is not used only for transfer passengers but also for P2P passengers.
DeleteThe number of people flying this route is increasing with every year so it should be expected one more daily flight to be added by LH but unfortunately it hasn't happened yet.
I remember the times after 2000 when LH did not fly FRA-BEG at all but only Jat Airways. Now we have double daily by LH and daily by JU.
Hope LH will add one more afternoon flight to BEG
Munich has much larger o&d traffic than Frankfurt.
DeletePlus LH is unhappy with Fraport letting FR in it.
Yeah but in Munich they also face indirect competition from Wizz Air which flies to Memmingen. At least for now, we have to see how long that route stays.
DeleteNice. Always good to see growth. I was driving a friend to the airport yesterday and there is quite heavy construction work going next to C concourse.
ReplyDeleteNumber of flights to Vienna is crazy, given the city is just 600km away from Belgrade
ReplyDelete600 km is a lot, especially with the ordeal of the Hungarian border in each direction.
DeleteSwiss is essentially moving their Nis flights to Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunate they are ditching those.
DeleteNice! Austrian's best selling point for north American flights is that their morning flight out of BEG isn't that early like LH.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be doing well in BEG.
DeleteCorrect. LH is too early
DeleteFinally more than just a couple of return flights from Eurowings.
ReplyDeleteHope they keep it over winter too.
DeleteHow long will Eurowings fly this route? Until end of October 2020?
DeleteYes. As it says in the article they still haven't published their winter schedule.
DeleteI think 7 million passengers could be within BEG's reach this year.
ReplyDeleteWe hope it...
DeleteGreat news for BEG and especially more connection opportunities to LH group network both European and transatlantic.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned couple of days ago LH group offers now so many connections from Serbian capital that arrival of BA in BEG is absolutely not needed.
DeleteYes, who needs competition and choices when you can have a nice monopoly!
DeleteGo LH, go!
It seems you forgot that there is quite big competition in BEG and that LH does not have monopoly especially after AF re-opened BEG
DeleteWell, nice to see LJU expanding rapidly. Not!
ReplyDeleteIn order to better compete against Austrian, Air Serbia should consider putting jet engine plane on the Vienna route and not old, noisy and slow ATRs.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteDoesn't Austrian often deploy Dashes on this route?
DeleteIn winter yes but in summer no.
DeleteIt would be more costly for them
DeleteSince last summer, some BEG-VIE flights are operated by the A319 by JU.
DeleteI join the examples with Roche, SR Technics, Emil Frey, ABB, Sika, Holcim etc.
DeleteWhy do you ruin the image of Serbia being only the country of emigration mostly to Switzerland?
DeleteDon't you know that emigration by default must be the main reason why LX and JU have so many daily flights BEG-ZRH?
Economy ties...It does not sound bad enough
It's interesting that Swiss only really succeeded in BEG and PRN in ex-Yu. Elsewhere they suspended flights or turned them seasonal.
ReplyDeleteMakes sense. Most gastarbeiter living in Switzerland from these two.
DeleteIt is not just diaspora. There are a mix of gastos, business travel and transfers.
DeleteOut of interest, how often does Swiss fly to Pristina?
DeleteI think Swiss only flies from Geneva to Pristina, while Edelweiss flies from Zurich.
DeleteBusiness to PRN ans BEG, oh please.lol
DeleteYes you might want to have a look into how many German and Swiss companies operate in Serbia, know it all.
DeleteYes there is a lot of business travelers between BEG and ZRH. There is at least 20+ software companies only in Belgrade that are working for Swiss market including the company where I'm working. Btw. Swiss Int. Airlines is one of ours biggest clients :-).
DeleteNot to mention that Nestle have several factories in Serbia, one of them very close to the airport in Surcin.
Those are just few examples.
Also not surprising about Austrian. You can here more Serbian on the streets of Vienna than in Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteLH group is very competitive from BEG now They have over 75 weekly flights to their hubs.
ReplyDelete*Alliance is slowly conquering another ex-YU market.
DeleteLH group is under big attack in VIE from LCCs so they are expanding is markets not already served from LCCs to prevent them from launching flights.
DeleteIf Lauda, Ryanair, Eazyjet, Level or Wizz started VIE-BEG or ZAG then OS would have been in very big trouble in these cities.
Who is better service wise on intra European flights? Austrian, Swiss or Lufthansa?
ReplyDeleteThey are pretty much a carbon copy of each other. They even have the same seats.
DeleteLH is the best in my opinion.
DeleteMy experience (approx. 30 return flights p.a. with LH Group):
DeleteSwiss
Lufthansa
Austrian
My experience
DeleteLufthansa
Swiss
Austrian
My experience, based on average 20-30 return flights per year with LH group:
DeleteLufthansa
.
.
Swiss
Austrian
I dont see what EW wants there in STR having Wizz in FKB and FMM. the worst case would be to to have now two weak routes BEG-STR, since JU's performance out of season for this route is not so stellar:
ReplyDeleteMay: 57%, Sept: 59,5% Oct: 64,5% (all one ways D-Srb)
You are right.
DeleteThe market isn't large enough for two carriers.
Eurowings is totally clueless. They put an aircraft on a route and see what happens. Lets wait and see how long they will be flying the route.
Delete^^ Exactly. Like they flew Pristina-Vienna for 3 weeks and are not ending the route after they got smashed by Wizz Air.
DeleteMaybe it's time for JU to get closer to Star Alliance.
ReplyDeleteI don't think EY would allow that.
DeleteSo which foreign airlines will have the most frequencies to BEG next summer?
ReplyDelete1. Wizz Air
Delete2. Montenegro Airlines
3. Lufthansa
4. Austrian
5. Swiss
6. Aeroflot
Good to see legacy airlines adding frequency and capacity at BEG.
ReplyDeleteHow will Air Serbia respond?
ReplyDeleteThey will probably introduce air fares to stand in the plane and start charging for toilet use while at the same time increase fares by 100 euros.
DeleteWasn't it the idea of "beloved" Ryanair?
DeleteWhy JU need to respond?
DeleteThey have an obvious advantage through their Star Alliance network for connecting flights to North America. I've been trying to book for months with YU but the online bookings heavily favor LH and OS, both in price and flight time/connections. Even trying to book through the Air Serbia website gives no help.
ReplyDeleteOcekujem da ErSrbija odgovori i uvede 3-4 polazaka za Bec u trecem talasu.To je ruta za koju se moraju boriti.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade is slowly becoming truly impressive. Seven million in 2020 is very impressive for ex YU standards
ReplyDeleteFor ex YU standard yes
DeleteFor YU standards (in case that country survived) it would be nothing
We don't really know that Anon 15.58 so let's concentrate on what we do know and tat's BEG is slowly starting to boom.
DeleteI noticed that lately there is so much negativity when it comes to BEG or JU. I don't like it.
Yes we know it. JAT operated fleet of 36 aircraft when Emirates had 8. JAT had 6 MD11's on order and 5 DC-10 's operating in fleet. JAT had plans to double its for those times impressive network in both long and medium haul.. JAT was considering to change the fleet of B727 with B767. JAT would have probably incorporated Adria and /or Aviogenex to become its charter and LCC divisions, when LCC model appeared. Austrian Airlines and Turkish Airlines started their exponential growth only once JAT collapsed, together with the country which was much richer, much more developed and much bigger market than all today's banana ex yu entities. When you add to these perfect geographical position and tradition, and western technology JAT (and Adria and Genex) had, the conclusion is only one : If Yugoslavia remained as a single country, BEG would have had today at least 25 million passengers per year, highly likely second runway and several terminals, and JAT would have been just little smaller than Turkish, for the domestic segment which is in Turkey really huge. Those are the facts, not negativity towards BEG or towards JU. If you want to understand.
DeleteWell at least JU today is actually doing something to rebuild itself. They invested in new planes, a new product and have actually expanded their network.Hopefully they stay on this track in the future. They will add 20 new destinations in two years, that's pretty good if you ask me.
Delete