NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia and Turkish Airlines have signed a wide-ranging codeshare agreement. Through the enhanced partnership, the two carriers will be able to reciprocally put their own desginator codes and flight numbers onto each other’s service between Istanbul and Belgrade starting August 15. Within the scope of the mutual agreement, in the near future, cooperation will be strengthened with Turkish Airlines to codeshare on Air Serbia’s flights from Belgrade to Banja Luka and Tivat, while Air Serbia will place its codes onto Turkish Airlines’ services from Istanbul to Ankara, Kayseri, Izmir, Konya, Adana, Trabzon, Antalya, Gazipasa, Dalaman, Bodrum and Gaziantep. “Taking into account the complementary structure of timetables of both carriers and the agreement designed to work reciprocally, it will allow both airlines’ customers to enjoy seamless connectivity in their respective hubs”, the two said in a joint statement. Air Serbia’s General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, Jiri Marek, noted, “We are glad to have developed our cooperation with Turkish Airlines through this codeshare partnership, which will provide passengers of both companies more choice and flexibility in organising their travels. We are sure this exciting and strategically very important partnership will improve economic relations of our countries. We are delighted to have the opportunity to host Turkish Airlines passengers on our flights to Belgrade as well as to other Air Serbia’s destinations”. The Serbian government hinted as early as October last year that a codeshare agreement was in the making between the two national carriers.
Brilliant news. I'm sure this will make it easier for TK to introduce additional flights once the market recovers. What's convenient with this deal is that now people flying between the two cities can fly to IST on TK in the morning and return to BEG on JU in early afternoon.
ReplyDeleteThis is probably a code-share that makes the most sense for JU.
Extra flights or widebodies :D
DeleteInteresting that even now on some days TK sends A321 to BEG. I see JU also increased IST in August from 3 to 5.
DeleteIST is the busiest route from BEG now.
DeleteAnd Istanbul as a city too. ( IST + SAW).
Turkish airlines plans to make IST the new Heathrow or Dubai international... They are recently signing new codeshares. The airport has a HUGE capacity and once the MAX issue is solved (and pandemic over) TK will expand insanely.
DeleteBefore pandemic, TK used to fly to Bucharest 3 times a day and all wide-bodies! TAROM was flying 2 times with A318. It was not possible for them to compete TK on this route and they signed codeshare agreement. It will benefit both sides for sure but mostly the new IST because passengers from Bucharest can benefit coverage of TK from IST.
Same as Aegean. TK used to fly 4 times a day and 2 widebody, very brutal, on the other hand A3 used to fly 3 times a day, codeshare signed some years ago. Now IST is like a transfer point to Athens because Aegean passengers can benefit +400 destinations of TK. (Mostly to North America, Africa and whole Asia)
Now it's time for Belgrade. I expect a third daily flight from TK to Belgrade and one of those flights will be widebody, fingers crossed for 777 like they fly to Athens and Bucharest.
JU may be flying 10 times a week to IST or fly 4 times a day to Ankara after this deal, I can't be sure.
4 times a week* I meant sorry
DeleteIsn't Bucharest on the A333? As for Athens, they do get a mix of everything, A333, B777 and B789. However you make a valid point, especially since in Belgrade they have tourists to rely on. Naturally I am not speaking about them coming now but once corona passes and once the situation in Turkey stabilizes. Serbia is desperate to revive the local tourism industry which has collapsed this summer (well, at least in Belgrade).
DeleteNice to see more and more positive news for JU. This is really cool.
ReplyDeleteI see that Turkish tourists started slowly to return in Serbia from June. Air Serbia returned to IST in May.
ReplyDeleteJune 2020 1.087 tourists down from 10.849 last year.
This is extra ordinary piece of news.
ReplyDeleteTruly extraordinary indeed!
DeleteIt's incredible indeed. Big achievement for JU.
DeleteI live in Banja Luka and this makes me happy. Before we had to fly out of ZAG or fly with really inconvenient JU schedule via BEG. With these TK flights now almost all flights on JU to and from BNX will connect to IST :)
ReplyDeleteExcellent news for JU, but also for TK - practically, a result of 7 years of struggle. On the other side, I am pretty much sure that point to point passengers will suffer, as we will have cartel now. Let we see JU's prices on this route, I doubt we will see EUR 109 for a return flight, as we did in the past.
ReplyDeleteWell there is Pegasus which is usually the cheapest option to Istanbul. TK is rarely below €140 but each time I bought tickets it was never less than €220. JU was cheaper but those were promo fares, usually they were between €150 and €250. Issue here is that ALL flights to Istanbul are full and Turkish airlines couldn't add more flights. Shame Pegasus can't increase to daily.
DeletePegasus is not allowed for daily flights to Belgrade.
DeleteBefore pandemic, Pegasus planned to fly to Skopje, Sarajevo, Pristine once daily.
Serbian CAD limits flights between the two countries.
Is Serbia-Turkey market the first one to start recovering?
ReplyDeleteI hope that this will finally make these relations more sane and that we will see more changes like TK adding more flights to BEG and JU introducing ESB in the future. Their bickering and fighting gave us no real results. TK can profit from this as JU's return to BEG connects nicely from many flights they offer.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great to see Ankara in JU's schedule.
DeleteAnd Izmir, don't forget Izmir...
DeleteWith the current FX rate of Turkish lira I think there will be less tourists originating from Turkey.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why there are five flights to AYT tomorrow :D Turkey has never been as cheap to visit as it is these days.
DeleteFlights to AYT are for Serbian tourists who go to spend their summer vacation in Turkey. The guy above is speaking about Turkish tourists to Serbia. They are definitely not coming on AYT charters. Btw one more very good job JU. Congratulations!
DeleteI know what he meant, I just added that is why the flow is in the other direction at the moment. :)
DeleteHowever if Turkey continues with its wars in Iraq and Libya their economy will keep on sinking.
Get ready for Turkish 777s in Belgrade :)))
ReplyDelete