Ukrainian low cost carrier SkyUp Airlines has announced it will introduce services between Kiev and Belgrade during the 2021 summer which begins on March 28 of next year. The carrier will commence operations on March 30 and run two weekly flights, each Tuesday and Friday, with the 189-seat Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Tickets have already been put on sale. The airline initially planned to commence operations to the Serbian capital this winter, however, it shelved the planned flights several weeks prior to the launch date. SkyUp has become a regular visitor to Belgrade since some of its Boeing 737-800 aircraft have begun undergoing C-checks at the Jat Tehnika maintenance facilities since this June.
Flights between Kiev and Belgrade will be restored on December 7, with Ukraine’s Windrose Airlines to launch two weekly flights between the two cities, filling the void left by Air Serbia, which suspended operations to Ukraine in March until the summer of 2021 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Serbian carrier has maintained services to Kiev on an off and on basis over the past few years. In 2014, Air Serbia cancelled plans to launch daily flights to Kiev due to instability in the country at the time. However, it introduced six weekly rotations between Belgrade and the Ukrainian capital in the summer of 2016, utilising leased equipment from Adria Airways, although it lasted only for one season. It then rebooted the route in the summer of 2019 which was maintained until the start of Covid-19. Furthermore, the airline was to introduce four weekly flights to Lviv this June.
SkyUp Airlines is a privately owned low cost carrier, which has flown seasonally to several coastal cities in the region, primarily to Croatia and Montenegro. It began operating charter flights in 2018 on behalf of tour operators and scheduled services, predominantly to leisure destinations. Since restarting operations on June 26, the LCC has been gradually increasing its operations in Ukraine and internationally, with a number of new routes launched with its fleet of eight B737-700, B737-800 and B737-900ER aircraft. One-way tickets to Belgrade start from 69 dollars without baggage. SkyUp is based at Kiev’s main airport of Boryspil. Further flight details for the new Kiev - Belgrade service can be found here.
Great news!
ReplyDeleteWon't the market become saturated with 3 airlines flying the same route?
ReplyDeleteI doubt JU will be back now.
DeleteKBP was mostly transfer destination for Air Serbia not P2P
DeleteYes but the issue was that A319 was too big and ATR too slow.
DeleteIt was mostly transfer to Montenegro, Greece, Italy and JFK.
DeleteThat's a lot of capacity
ReplyDeleteNot considering how much there is to places like WAW or BUD.
DeleteBEG is the biggest in ex-Yu
DeleteTrue
DeleteThis makes sense. Belgrade and Kiev have been connected for the past 50 years. If JU can not make it work then let's allow those who can to step in and take care of the market.
ReplyDeleteThat's the beauty of the Serbian market. No one is restricted from flying
Those are great prices
ReplyDeleteYes but what's included in the price?
DeleteYou have fares with and without luggage. There are hot and cold meals for which you have to pay but can preorder.
DeleteActually their main destination in the region used to be Albania.
ReplyDeleteNice to see they service some of their planes in BEG.
ReplyDeleteOne arrived just last week.
DeleteI've been seeing them for a while now on FR24. I see Pobeda is still a regular visitor. if BEG wasn't a high yielding destination for SU we would be seeing scheduled flights by now.
DeleteI don't think these new flights to Ukraine will work. People need flexibilty when traveling and TK and OS offer it because they have multiple daily flights. TK sends widebodies to Kyiv right now and they have 10 weekly to BEG. Who wants to fly on a LCC turboprop for three hours when there are much better options for the same price?
ReplyDeleteIt's not a turboprop, it's a B737-800.
DeleteWindrose isnt
DeleteThey will be flying with ERJ145 which is also a jet engine plane.
DeleteWell, I definitely prefer direct turboprop flight over connecting one via IST or VIE.
DeleteBut that's the thing, there won't be a nonstop turboprop connection between the two cities.
DeleteNice. That's now 11 new routes launching from BEG next March.
ReplyDeleteNot bad at all.
DeleteThat's including Wizz Air or not? Can you list all of them for us?
DeleteYes, because the Wizz Air routes are new too.
Delete1. Stuttgart - Belgrade (Eurowings)
2. Kiev - Belgrade (SkyUp)
3. Belgrade - Milan (Wizz Air)
4. Belgrade - Turku (Wizz Air)
5. Belgrade - Charleroi (Wizz Air)
6. Belgrade - Cologne (Wizz Air)
7. Belgrade - Hamburg (Wizz Air)
8. Belgrade - Lisbon (Wizz Air)
9. Belgrade - Barcelona (Wizz Air)
10. Belgrade - Friedrichshafen (Wizz Air)
11. Belgrade - Sandefjord (Wizz Air)
Let's hope JU brings back some destinations like ROV because then the list will be even more impressive.
DeleteAlso is LO launching BEG-BUD next year?
With DY almost dead I am sure Wizz will launch Sandefjord next year
Delete@9.56 LOT has cancelled all its planned new flights from Budapest. At the moment they haven't rescheduled any.
DeleteGood news for BEG and VIE I guess
DeleteThey are not cancelling their plan to have a base in BUD, but I guess the pace will be much slower, given the overall small demand. We shall see what else is resumed in the spring/summer 2021.
DeleteLove it.
DeleteGood to see some new routes.
DeleteThese eastern European airlines seem to be doing fine in BEG.
ReplyDeleteWith LH Group struggling they have a great opportunity to take even more passengers especially LO and B2.
DeleteNice addition
ReplyDeleteDo they offer connections?
ReplyDeleteNo, unfortunately.
DeleteYou can always buy two separate tickets. They are fairly cheap.
DeleteBelgrade is getting a diverse list of airlines
ReplyDeleteNice to see new routes at this day and age.
ReplyDeleteThe more the merrier.
DeleteThe fares they are offering are great.
ReplyDeleteThey are launching a lot of new routes
ReplyDeleteHopefully we see Ukrainian tourists coming and Serbians visiting Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most neglected markets.
DeleteInterestingly, BiH and Bulgaria topped the charts with the highest number of tourists so far during the first 7 months of 2020 according to the statistics. The Romanian and Chinese are almost the same. Let's see how many Ukrainians visit Serbia in 2021.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Serbia
Yep, those are the top 10 tourist arrivals in 2020:
DeleteArrivals by country
2020
# Country Arrivals
1 Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina 27,747
2 Bulgaria Bulgaria 22,629
3 Croatia Croatia 21,515
4 Montenegro Montenegro 17,466
5 North Macedonia North Macedonia 16,312
6 Germany Germany 15,817
7 Romania Romania 14,938
8 China China incl. Hong Kong 14,682
9 Turkey Turkey 13,117
10 Russia Russia 12,567
Official source: https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/G2020/Pdf/G20201238.pdf
October statistics are coming out in two days, will be interesting to see if Israel enters top 10.
DeleteAs a resident of Belgrade I appreciate their commitment to BEG.
ReplyDeleteIf beg get any flight to china next year, it will be game changer for region
ReplyDeleteAfter JU ended seasonal service in 2016 there was no service between two countries in 2017 and 2018. Where were PS and 7W to launch flights then? Where were PS, 7W and additionally PQ in 2018 and 2019 to launch service then?
ReplyDeleteKovid comes around in 2020 and like most airlines JU makes a reasonable decision to hit pause on newly introduced routes including Ukraine. Both Windrose and SkyUP then suddenly announce flights to BEG, postpone them, then announce again. Don't they have any common sense if not business sense? Deez nuts! My advice for them: you will earn more money if you put cash for those flights in a dumpster and light it on fire. At least you can tape it and make money from billions watching it online.
Maybe I am retarded, but what do you want to say by your comment?
DeleteDo you want to say that if an airline did not start a route between Serbia and Ukraine in 2019 it should not be allowed to do it now? Do you want to say that if somebody posponed a route, they may not start it, but should obligatorily cancel it?
He is just furious his airport ain't developing.
DeleteBy that logic B2 is equally idiotic because they resumed scheduled flights to BEG even before Wizz Air.
DeleteLook at them today, they even boosted BEG to 4x and many of their flights are increased to E95.
@Anon 19:08
DeleteIf you are not: start by reading and responding to first two questions of the thread starter.
The answer to your question is: at that time they were not interested in starting this route. And what?
DeleteMaybe even they would not open this route if not for covid. As a result of covid Ukrainians are banned from entry into most EU countries (except for essential travel), so it is reasonable that Ukrainian low costs are looking for alternative destinations that the clients may find interesting in given circumstances. Maybe even they will cancel this route when covid subsides, but for now they give it a try. And what?
Do you want to say that because JU might be potentially interested, nobody should be allowed to compete with them?
I will comfort you: both Windrose and Skyup appeal to a different client that will not use JU and most probably does not even know that JU exists. I know aviation geeks know all the airlines in the world, but normal holiday makers usually just check the offering of a locally present low cost and go where this low cost wants to take them.
I'm not so sure this will work out long term, especially on a B737-800 but let's see.
ReplyDeleteI think Skyup cooperates with Ukrainian tour operators. So they might be able to get tour groups.
DeleteYou snooze, you loose Air Serbia.
ReplyDeleteSnooze? Ever heard of a pandemic? More than 50% of global routes are affected and you single out Air Serbia? There is exactly 0% chance both Windrose and SkyUP can make it on this route during current environment.
DeleteI just hope this is sustained and not cancelled before it starts.
ReplyDeletethis route has always been unstable with JU. Hope SkyUp has better luck.
ReplyDeleteUnstable you are. JU used the gift of CRJ in 2016 to develop potential new routes. CRJ was not a planned lease, it was not a permanent addition to the fleet - it was a GIFT! Over the next couple of years most of those routes were converted to regular routes including Kiev. What is unstable about that?
DeleteSkyUP doesn't need luck. They need brain to realize this was a bad move.
Calm down. They have private investors in Ukraine towards whom they are responsible. It is not your money.
DeleteBigger planes = lower cost per seat as long as you can fill them. They feel they can. JU could not, as they were looking for transfer pax and looking for transfer pax in Kiev is somehow strange as PS offers absolutely dumping prices for JFK in particular.
And how much you would have to dump the price to make somebody make a flight 10% longer in km (+700 km), with 1000 km in an ATR included...
What you are saying is that private investors in Windrose and Skyup are going against Air Serbia and JU's transfer passengers to help KBP-JFK route operated by ... Ukraine International Airlines? This is nuts!!!
DeleteOne advantage Windrose has is that it gives you 23 kilos of free luggage you can check in. I checked some of their flights in December and two, three flights have the cheapest fare sold out. Hopefully loads pick up as we approach the first flight. Some additional promotion wouldn't be bad especially since they sell connections to 6-7 domestic destinations.
ReplyDeleteBEG needs as many new carriers as it can get to fill that new terminal they are building.
ReplyDelete...and Skyup and Windrose are non-profit charities devoted to helping Vinci achieve that goal? Because they are not for-profit businesses when they launch brand new, competing services during corona.
DeleteBEG needs pandemic to go away, just like everyone else. Then they need to restore services that already existed or were announced before pandemic. Did you even know about dozens of services, including Kiev, that BEG already had but were paused? They helped fill the terminal. Adding new carriers comes after that in priorities.
Well BEG is no longer relying on JU to make KBP work, they obviously can't live up to the airport's expectations. Now the airport found other partners that might just do the job required to justify all that massive investment.
DeleteFunny joke. BEG and JU are fine. Windrose is expanding to TGD, SKP, ZAG etc so it has nothing to do with JU-BEG relationship.
Delete