Markets across the former Yugoslavia will be better connected to Ukraine than ever before by mid-December with four capital cities to boast links to Kiev with scheduled year-round flights. Ukrainian carrier Windrose Airlines is leading the way in improving connectivity, however, others are set to join too. Ukraine is a rapidly growing aviation market and has a strong tourism potential with more than six million foreign tourists annually.
Windrose began its expansion in the former Yugoslavia by launching two weekly flights between Kiev and Zagreb earlier this month. The service has proven successful with healthy loads and will be increased to three weekly from December. Over 11.000 people flew indirectly between the two last year, mainly via Vienna and Warsaw. Zagreb was Kiev’s largest unserved market in Central and Eastern Europe, other than Russia. Ljubljana is now Kiev’s largest unserved market in the region. Windrose itself planned to launch operations to the Slovenian capital this month as well, however, entry restrictions have delayed such plans indefinitely.
The Ukrainian airline will be introducing two weekly services to Belgrade from December 7 and will fill the void left by Air Serbia which has temporarily suspended the route since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The Serbian carrier has tentatively scheduled its service resumption to Kiev for May 30, 2021, with two weekly rotations, which is down from three weekly during the summer of 2019. Changes at this early stage remain likely. Ukrainian low cost carrier SkyUp, which initially scheduled a new service from Kiev to Belgrade from October but later cancelled its plans, has filed a preliminary schedule indicating it will commence operations to the Serbian capital from January 1, 2021 with two weekly rotations using its Boeing 737-800 aircraft. However, tickets are yet to be put on sale, and it remains unclear whether these flights will materialise.
Windrose will also spread its wings to Skopje, linking the city with a nonstop scheduled service to Ukraine for the first time from December 6. A week earlier, the carrier will inaugurate flights to Podgorica. Montenegro Airlines also plans to introduce a new one weekly service to the Ukrainian capital this winter season, the head of operator Airports of Montenegro, Danilo Orlandić, said recently. He did not indicate when exactly the flights will be launched. Montenegro Airlines is yet to schedule the service, however, last month the company said it was working on introducing flights to the Ukrainian capital.
Comments
Time for OU to step in and compete. The Dash is the perfect bird for the route.
TGD looks promising.
SKP might struggle with loads, but let's see.
BEG should do fine with a smaller plane. Filling a 738 can be challenging.
LJU should also do fine, when the borders become eased.
fingers crossed because of the pandemic
https://www.exyuaviation.com/p/air-serbia-belgrade-lviv.html
TGD-KBP will be a good route.
I think Albania has more flights in summer than Croatia.
This is a huge number actually. That's around 916 passengers per month! There is more room for Windrose to expand.
regarding the Windrose flights to SKP they are catering for winter tourism
"Авиакомпания Windrose открывает новый рейсы из Киева в Скопье
Рейсы будут выполняться с 06.12.20 до 25.03.2021.
Путешествия ориентированы в первую очередь на зимний отдых на горнолыжных и бальнеологических курортах Попова-Шапка, Маврово, Дебарски-Бани и ряд других."
P.S TGD currently booming? only flights to BEG today
You might think that it would be Belgrade, this is clearly proof that Serbia is not included as market in all that analysis .
I guess it is because being European is misinterpreted with being in the EU .
Serbia thus gets not included in the data and thus simply forgotten .
It would be interesting how many routes did not materialize just because Belgrade never popped up in any " European " market survey "....
They were really convinced that it is a former Soviet republic somewhere in the Caucasus .
I dont find that funny at all .
I'm sorry but your argument is meaningless. If there is demand towards Slovenia and Croatia and not Serbia has got nothing to do with EU membership and because Ukrainians don't see Serbia as European. Besides, Ukrainians have opened up to Europe quite a lot. You now have more and more cities connected to mainland Europe.
Even during Aerosvit times, the demand for travel between both Serbia and Ukraine was not that high even if you have the same alphabet and culture to some extent.
The same applies for Romania, where we clearly see lack of demand between both countries and Romania is actually an EU member.
With Bulgaria it's quite different because there is a sizeable population of Bessarabian Bulgarians in Ukraine and logically more demand.
It's now entirely up to both governments to stimulate travel between Serbia and Ukraine by promoting cities, culture, etc.