Flights between Serbia and Montenegro resumed this morning following a five-month hiatus, marking an end to the longest period without scheduled commercial operations between the two since World War Two. Air Serbia and Montenegro Airlines, which boast a codeshare partnership, will operate 61 weekly flights between the two countries. Air Serbia has scheduled fifteen weekly rotations between Belgrade and Podgorica, as well as sixteen weekly flights from Belgrade to Tivat. Starting August 21, the Serbian carrier will resume seasonal two weekly operations between Niš and Tivat, which will run until September 20. Montenegro Airlines will maintain double daily flights from both Podgorica and Tivat to the Serbian capital.
Serbia - Montenegro passenger traffic
| Year | PAX |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 513.162 |
| 2017 | 510.466 |
| 2018 | 526.174 |
| 2019 | 548.679 |
Commenting on the service resumption, Air Serbia’s CEO, Duncan Naysmith, said, “I am very pleased that conditions have been met for the resumption of flights to Tivat and Podgorica. We plan to offer some 60.000 seats to our passengers on flights between Serbia and Montenegro until the end of the summer season”. He added that Air Serbia will continue to closely monitor developments and will constantly adjust its Montenegro operations based on travel restrictions and demand. Overall, at this point, the airline has scheduled 296 flights to Montenegro until the end of the 2020 summer season on October 25. The General Manager of operator Airports of Montenegro, Danilo Orlandić, said, “The Serbian market is one of the most important to us, while the Belgrade route is the most frequent for both our national carriers. Airports of Montenegro sends its sincere welcome to Serbian citizens”.
Belgrade - Podgorica - Belgrade passenger traffic
| Year | PAX |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 282.874 |
| 2017 | 293.913 |
| 2018 | 299.517 |
| 2019 | 312.301 |
Serbia and Montenegro is currently the busiest cross-border market among the former Yugoslav states with 548.679 passengers travelling between the two last year. This year was set to be another record breaker. Prior to the pandemic, Air Serbia and Montenegro Airlines planned to jointly operate 103 weekly flights between the two countries at the height of the summer season, with the Serbian carrier scheduling sixty weekly services, while its Montenegrin counterpart 43. Flights were suspended on March 18, marking the longest period without operations between the two states in the post-World War Two period. The first scheduled service in post-war Yugoslavia was between Belgrade and Podgorica on April 8, 1946. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the longest period without commercial services between the two was during the NATO bombing in 1999, from March 23, until operations to Tivat were restored on June 18 that same year. During the golden era of Yugoslav commercial aviation in the 1980s, the Serbia - Montenegro market was the sixth busiest in the country, preceded by Serbia - Croatia, Croatia - Croatia, Serbia - Slovenia and Serbia - Macedonia.
Belgrade - Tivat - Belgrade passenger traffic
| Year | PAX |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 230.288 |
| 2017 | 216.553 |
| 2018 | 226.657 |
| 2019 | 236.378 |
Interesting numbers. Is growth also because of transfer passengers? With so many flights between the three airports I don't see how anyone, even OS, can be competitive! Growth in TGD seems impressive. No wonder YM can't survive without it.
ReplyDeleteYes transfers contributed to the growth. And the codeshare helped a lot.
DeleteI think BEG became the main and dominant transfer airport for MNE-JFK market. Hopefully they do even better here in winter when OS doesn't resume their JFK flights.
Delete^Its been that way pretty much since the JFK route started.
DeleteWas OS the main player on this market before JU?
Delete+100
DeleteNice to see the biggest market out of BEG recover!
ReplyDeleteGood news finally
ReplyDeleteBoth morning flts to TIV (ASL ATR7/MGX E95) was full!
DeleteWell JU sent the ATR so no surprise there.
DeleteNot surprised
DeleteIf JU was full and if such situation continues then hopefully they increase it to A319. That's how it was supposed to be at first. Usually that plane rotated to LHR.
DeleteAccording to beg.aero JU is sending A319 to TIV tomorrow. With these MNE flights they are also getting more feed for their LHR flight.
DeleteThe BEG-TGD flight on JU was not so full this morning. Around 20 pax.
DeleteMy mother was on the flight and she said that it wasn't full but around 70% maybe
DeleteI think no one is happier than YM right now. Without BEG they can't survive for long.
ReplyDeleteTrust me, Air Serbia is very happy too.
DeleteActually I think the happiest are MNE airports as they struggled big time in this period.
DeleteEveryone struggled and everyone is happy. If you think BEG with its costs is not relieved it has an extra 4-5 flights per day then you are mistaken.
DeleteNo one said that about BEG but they had more flights so pressure was less on them, especially once charters started booming.
DeleteBEG as a significantly larger airport has significantly larger costs and as a privately run airport can't expect any government assistance.
DeleteWhat a discussion. Two people trying to prove who "suffered more" and getting a kick out of it. Idiotic.
DeleteYes but the airports in MNE have far more family employed by politicians XD
DeleteI simply love this guy that starts every single of his replies with "actually" ... He's just one hilarious "tante" :)
DeleteI love the history info. Very interesting.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteDemand will grow because Montenegro announced it will probably remove requirment of PCR test.
ReplyDeleteThere were huge lines for testing in Belgrade and when they asked people why they were waiting to get tested everyone said so they could go to Montenegro.
DeleteIt's not surprising. Montenegro is one of the few countries in the world that requires its own citizens to be pretested too.
DeleteI think TIA dislikes this the most since almost all transfers from JFK to TGD where flown there.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very profitable route for both airlines. Very limited costs and extremely expensive tickets for 40 minute flights.
ReplyDeletePlus the airspace is controlled by SMATSA which helps as well. Government owned company which is probably forced to give both airlines good prices and to be lenient when it comes to payments, something that's very important to YM.
DeleteYour probably right since YM has huge debt to SMATSA.
DeleteI remember they had huge debt towards BEG as well. Don't know what happened with that. I doubt the French will tolerate it for long.
DeleteI believe their debt to BEG has been paid off. They were ordered by the courts.
DeleteAnyone know how much they owed?
DeleteThey owed 1.5 million euros.
DeleteOk, that wasn't too bad then.
DeleteSo basically, BEG figures and TGD ones rely heavily on each other. Around 20% of BEG traffic comes from MNE. Incredible numbers.
ReplyDeleteAnd 60% of TGD comes from BEG.
DeleteI really wonder who suffered more.
What's your obsession with proving who "suffered more"?
DeleteI actually think MNE compensated from Russian, Western tourists and lately from the Polish ones. Its borders remained open during the pandemic, remember?
DeleteRussian citizens were banned from entering Montenegro until last week. There are still no flights between Russia and Montenegro.
DeleteHope the loads are good.
ReplyDeleteCould have happened ages ago were it not for petty politics.
ReplyDelete+1
DeletePlease be more specific, Serbia had no intention of closing its borders but it did so after hysteria by the MNE government.
DeleteAbout time!
ReplyDeleteIf there were 103 flights planned it means that only about 59% of planned traffic has resumed.
ReplyDeleteConsidering there is a global pandemic ongoing and a sharp downturn in demand that is actually not bad.
DeleteI think if the demand is there they will increase flights.
DeleteYes, Tivat was increased to A319 and all other flights are so far booked, I hope they will all show up tomorrow. I think they will because JU was selling flights from 22nd so these sold out in a matter of two days.
DeleteHallelujah
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see what is the number 1 transfer route from TGD and TIV via BEG for Air Serbia. Likewise for Montenegro Airlines considering they codeshare on almost all JU routes.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing New York?
DeleteMy guess would rather be some Western European destinations.
DeleteAnd from now on the Belgrade-Tivat-Belgrade flights operated by Air Serbia are codeshared by Turkish Airlines too :)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if that can realistically bring any extra passengers on this route.
DeleteAre Turkish citizens even allowed to enter Montenegro?
DeleteYes, Turkey is on the Greek list.
Delete* Green list, haha apologies.
DeleteFor JU, this will give its entire network a boost due to transferring passengers.
ReplyDeleteNot surprised by those figures since air transport is the only sane way of traveling between Serbia and Montenegro considering the road and rail infrastructure,
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteFinally. This is not just about some people going to have a week in the sun and sea. So many families were kept apart because of this. A lot of people in Serbia also own property in Montenegro and businesses too. It might seem trivial but for example a Montenegrin friend of mine who is building a small hotel on the coast had to halt construction because he couldn't get any construction workers, since they are mostly brought in from Serbia...
ReplyDeleteDaily departures board at BEG and TGD/TIV now looking much better.
ReplyDeleteAn extra four to five flights per day certainly help.
DeleteIf such situation continues I expect more flights to be added soon.
Delete548.679 last year. Nice.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that there are more passengers to on BEG-TGD-BEG line than BEG-TIV-BEG line even if TIV gets much more flights in summer.
ReplyDeleteBecause in winter there are not so many flights to TIV while Podgorica is constant throughout the year.
DeleteI think JU even operates daily ATR in winter to Tivat, not much of a demand especially with YM having 7 or 10 weekly flights. In summer the situation is very different as JU also gets a lot of transfers to TIV. I remember on some days there are 30 passengers just from Aeroflot transfering to JU's 13.45 flight to Tivat. That's why that flight is almost always on the A320.
DeleteYes, it's a daily departure to Tivat with ATR72 in winter. Tivat is dead outside of the summer season.
DeleteNice to see that INI-TIV is also coming back.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteBut only till September 20...
DeleteAnd who do you think is going to travel to Tivat from Nis after the holidays are over?
DeleteINI-TIV was always a summer seasonal route, I think it didn't operate last October.
DeleteYep, last year they began in July and also operated until mid September.
DeleteAlthough they were 3 weekly as far as I can remember.
DeleteYes they were
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/p/air-serbia-nis-tivat.html
Does anyone have the loads for today's flights?
ReplyDeleteGood enough if JU is already upgrading equipment to Tivat tomorrow.
DeleteYM just said it has some 500 passengers on today's flights to/ from BEG.
DeleteThat's pretty good!
DeleteThat's over 100 passengers per flight. Not bad at all.
DeleteIt means they were full.
DeleteDon't forget that both JU and YM started selling these flights a few days ago when the ban was lifted. I am sure both airlines are happy with extra revenue.
DeleteMontenegro is Air Serbia's playground.
ReplyDeleteI would say Slovenia as well, 17 weekly from BEG and 2 weekly from INI. That's a very good and strong presence, I think they got a lot of regular customers who transfer in BEG.
DeleteGreat news for all aviation fans, that's for sure. What's even better is that Switzerland suspended quarantine for people arriving from Serbia. This is probably going to be another market to recover real fast as there is a huge number of O&D passengers, that is BEG-ZRH is the biggest market.
ReplyDeleteThat's good to hear. Do you maybe know are Serbian citizens allowed to enter Switzerland and what are the requirements?
Delete^ Only Serbian citizens with residency in Switzerland can enter.
DeleteSeems like it will be everyone from Serbia who will be allowed in.
Deletehttps://www.blic.rs/vesti/drustvo/srbija-skinuta-sa-crvene-liste-nasi-gradani-ce-od-sutra-moci-da-putuju-u-ovu-zemlju/nhmjr2s
Yes quarantine will be removed but I think only Serbian citizens with residency in Switzerland are allowed in. Same with other countries. At least that's what Serbian foreign ministry site indicates. But let's wait and see.
DeleteLast anon is right. This applies only to Swiss citizens and Serbian citizens with Swiss residency. They don't have to go into quarantine now. The rest are not allowed to enter the country.
DeleteThat's probably 80% of the market.
Delete^ true
DeleteAccording to YUTA charter flights to Tunis will resume from 04.09. Hopefully TU dors well like they did for almost 20 years now.
DeleteThe drop in passenger numbers in 2017 was caused by Air Serbia which culled its network that year.
ReplyDeleteMost certainly.
DeleteOn Friday Montenegro will decide to remove the required PCR test. So demand will grow.
ReplyDeleteAbout bloody time
ReplyDeleteI guess August in BEG should improve quite a bit with Montenegro, Switzerland and charter flights.
ReplyDeleteMontenegrin authorities can make shit happen .
ReplyDeleteImagine them in the European Union, how much damage they could do ...
Finally tomorrow we will have 11 regional departures, like in the good old days: IST, JFK, SOF, SKP, TIA, ATH, SKG, DBV, SPU, TGD, TIV and SJJ.
ReplyDeleteJFK regional?
DeleteRegional wave of departures which is located between two European ones.
DeleteCheck in this morning for MGX flight to Podgorica at BEG
ReplyDeletehttps://cdn1.img.rs.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/14/1123238258_0:0:1600:1200_1000x750_80_0_0_6ba682358ed36436e9dc725ebc51874f.jpg.webp
JU to TIV on the Atr was 100% full.
Delete