Air Serbia has started adding flights and has more than doubled its capacity to Montenegro compared to its initial plan over the coming days. It comes amid the collapse of Montenegro Airlines, leaving the Serbian carrier as the sole operator between the two countries, which is the busiest cross-border market in the former Yugoslavia. The Serbian airline has added additional departures to Podgorica following an increase in bookings while capacity has been boosted from the 66-seat ATR72 turboprop aircraft to the 144-seat Airbus A319 jet on December 29 and 30, as well as January 2, 3 and 10. Services to Tivat have also been upgraded from the ATR72 to the A319 over the coming days. The airline has added an additional departure to Podgorica this evening to deal with the increased demand.
Air Serbia has seen an uptick in transfer passengers originating from Montenegro that were initially scheduled to fly with the Montenegrin carrier. Some forty travellers in total will be transferring today onto various services, primarily Germany, France and Slovenia via Belgrade. Commenting on the matter, Air Serbia said yesterday, “Due to new circumstances and the suspension of Montenegro Airlines flights, Air Serbia will continue to provide strong links between cities in the region, Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as North America, through its hub in Belgrade. The Serbian national airline will carefully monitor possible changes in demand during the next period and adjust its capacity and frequencies to those changes".
Serbia and Montenegro is 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 between the two were suspended on March 18 due to the pandemic and resumed in mid-August, marking the longest period without operations between the two states in the post-World War Two period. Demand has been slow to recover with Serbian nationals initially restricted from entering Montenegro for the majority of the summer, while PCR test requirements continue to hamper demand on both sides.
Serbia - Montenegro passenger traffic
| Year | PAX |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 513.162 |
| 2017 | 510.466 |
| 2018 | 526.174 |
| 2019 | 548.679 |
Bravo to Air Serbia filling in the gap!
ReplyDeleteImpressive to see so many transfers to those three destinations. Seems like JU is the biggest winner of JP and YM going down because now they get to handle the market via BEG.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know how many passengers flew between TGD and LJU? Where is all this demand coming from?
DeleteAnon 9:05 in 2019 around 56k with increase by 13,5% from 2018.
DeleteWill be interesting how many of those switch to JU.
DeleteProbably all of them. I doubt many would fly via IST which is only logical alternative to BEG and JU. Maybe we finally get JU A319 in LJU that's not from INI.
DeleteAnonymous09:05 - probably from people working and living in slovenia.
DeleteSo much for predictions they wouldn't react.
ReplyDeleteGreat news for BEG.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how it can be good. It lost one of its biggest customers and it is certain that not every single passenger YM had flying via BEG or to BEG will be recouped by JU.
DeleteAnd where will those YM passengers go? JU has not increased fares, they just added flights so those who flew in the past will just change airlines. What changed now is that most non-stop passengers to Europe will go via BEG like those 40 souls today.
DeleteI don't see how this is not good news for BEG.
They can goo with Austrian, LOT, Turkish...
DeleteThey don't offer nearly the same flexibility like JU does.
DeleteLO won't be back until March and neither will OS after 11.01 so how exactly are they going to be a problem for JU?
DeleteMeanwhile OS is still selling YM flights on their website. I guess they are trying to get any penny they can.
DeleteIt has nothing to do with OS. Montenegro Airlines flights are still in global GDS and tickets are being sold everywhere. That's what happens when you shut the airline overnight without warning. Also MGX is still officially in business. It has not filed for bankruptcy.
DeleteSo what will happen with those poor people who might be tricked into buy tickets with YM? Will they have a chance of a refund or is that that?
Delete@ anon 9,11am
DeleteYM and JU often had departures at similar times. What used to be on the ATR could just go over to the A319.
And then there were two.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I was the one who wrote that a few days ago.
DeleteDobro će doći ovaj neplanirani keš za prevazilaženje krize u vazdušnom saobraćaju.Očekivana i brza reakcija JU,bravo.
ReplyDeleteAnd just like that the market started moving on. YM 2.0 will never happen.
ReplyDeleteGood to see they reacted quikcly.
ReplyDeleteWhy hasn't Croatia Airlines attempted to launch flights to TGD and offer some connections. They were supposed to start flying this summer anyway. Another missed opportunity.
ReplyDeleteBecause they offer nothing in reality.
DeleteThey can offer far more connections to LH hubs.
DeleteDoubt it because they could not offer more than 3 weekly ZAG-TGD meanwhile JU is going crazy from all this demand.
DeleteAlso there is OS in TGD which offers like so much more than OU could ever.
OU should stick to what they know, ZAG to the coast, LH Group hubs and OMO.
OU had its chance. Look at JU today, 40 passengers to CDG, FRA and LJU all destinations OU could cover. If they had 40/74 on the Q400 it would be a fantastic load.
DeleteAnon 10:50
Delete+ 1000
10:50 Anonymous
DeleteBravo!
It's disappointing to see OU not think outside of the box much, and be as passive as they are. Potential is there.
DeleteWith JU rushing to fill the void and with OS and others returning in March what is there that OU can do?
Delete@Original poster 09:48
DeleteInstead, actually in addition to TGD, you can put BEG, INI, SOF, PRN, SKG, OHD, BUH earlier, OMO earlier and with more frequencies, ATH nonstop, CAI, BEY, AMM, TEH, IST and all those, and more, just to the east. The same was supposed to be to the west as well, making ZAG hub instead of feeding Mutti. Only big players can survive, we see it day by day, and OU will probably shortly follow YM and JP staying in shape and form it now has. All other ex-republics are either smaller markets, or less developed markets, or with less or no tourism, or with less or no diaspora, or with worse geographical position, or with no EU advantages, or all of those together. Unfortunately, there is no vision, no idea, no strategy, no plan and no will to do anything, except tons of money already pumped in company in order to feed LH
What I don't understand is why haven't they launched special rescue fares for stranded passengers from Montenegro Airlines? They had a code share agreement with them after all.
ReplyDeleteFlights are selling like hot cakes so why should they? In LJU it was a different situation as they needed to capture a market in which they didn't have a dominant position. It was after that for the first time ever they could fill 17 weekly flights.
DeleteWell, I thought it would be a nice idea and gesture for people, who had already bought their tickets so they could get new once cheaper...
Delete"hot cakes" its 40 passengers
DeleteRead more carefully, it's 40 passengers going to FRA, CDG and LJU ONLY. There are other connections as well as local passengers.
DeleteI wonder if we will see some new airline come to TGD. Maybe Lufthansa or Air France.
ReplyDeleteAF has really high costs so I think they will serve this market via BEG.
DeleteOnce you go on airfrance.com and chose Montenegro as your country it tells you that you will be redirected to their Serbia page. Someone said that you can buy one way tickets for as little as €90 without luggage from CDG to TGD on JU-AF.
DeleteGood news considering the situation.
ReplyDeleteAdministrator cut me of yesterday as I moved into politics. So I will not go into that. Just to say that in addition market forces at play, I think there is 'behind the scene' work to tie JU much stronger to MNE than we even expect from powers to be. Anon who wrote something against it, has no true understanding of 'Balkan politics' at all.
ReplyDeleteAll in all good and expected move by JU. Been to BEG for the first time in months to check something, very, very depressing, empty, sad. Hope we all start the chains moving by late spring, slowly but at least moving.
This 2020 was truly once in 100 years event like the big pandemic of 1918, the difference was that aviation then was in its 'infant' stage, not like today, hence the major, structural impact on aviation with COVID.
No one seemed to mind when OU got subsidies to fly empty to OMO so this makes sense.
DeleteSubsidies to OU were given by the Hercegovina-Neretva county and not by Croatian Government.
DeleteCroatian government gives them subsidies for all of their domestic network. On top of that they also get money from the city of Dubrovnik.
DeleteAir Serbia, as it was the case in previous cases, reacted very quickly and filled the gap.
ReplyDeleteWell done AIr Serbia and all the best!
and what should they do? Montenegro is one of their core markets
Deleteif they leave others take over Montenegro then they can close as well
Well OU ignored JP's bankruptcy so anything is possible. They could have ignored the market and just let existing flights fill out with locals and for transfers to go to OS and VIE.
Delete@admin,
ReplyDeleteMay I ask you if the Christmas card was intentionally removed this year from your blog or simply more important aviation news were actually more interesting?
@12:17 are you here on this site to be reading about aviation or greeting cards? Obviously Admin had something more important to communicate this year than bother with the greeting card. Happy holidays anyways!
Delete@13:50 , agree with you 100%. Nobody cares to read silly Holiday greetings lol
DeleteObviously you have not been following this site for last 10 years!
DeleteBEG TGD was sold out today.
ReplyDeleteWhich one? :D
DeleteWhat will happen with the TGD-LIS route? ASL does not fly to LIS. Unless this will be launched by FR? Meanwhile, W6 is making huge cuts in their network in 2021 especially in MXP, SZG, BUD, OTP. It seems that 2021 will not be a good year for aviation.
ReplyDeleteDoubt anyone will worry about it
DeleteWizz Air has also announced a large round of cuts in places like SKP, TIA, MXP, BUD, VAR and so on.
DeleteTIA-RHO and TIA-HER are gone for good. :(
No one has yet said that YM's own government's decisions during the pandemic brought their demise. Banning citizens of Serbia from visiting cost them a lot of revenue (Serbia is by far their largest market) and ultimately led to their bankruptcy. No one else to blame but Milo.
ReplyDeleteWould collapse of YM finally open market for LCC between RS and ME and end of decades of monopoly...? 100€ tickets are rip off.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, what would be your acceptable price tag for a RT on the route?
DeleteAcceptable ticket is €100 to €120 because taxes are high. Serbia and Srpska suspended a whole list of taxes years ago which is why BEG-BNX is so cheap.
DeleteAs, Serbia is going to do anything to protect JU, it's unlikely.
DeleteBut since it's a fairly short flight, tickets could probably even cheaper at that - if there's enough demand to fill B737/A320.
They can't be cheaper as there are government taxes that are quite high, nothing to do about protecting JU as they don't get money from these taxes.
DeleteAlso people write here as if YM was cheap.
Love this! Love JU!
ReplyDeleteSome tycoon wanted to buy Monenegro Airlines for 1 eur if government takes care of all debt. In that case can I double up and offer 2 eur?
ReplyDelete:D
DeleteNot if i win with 3 eur :)
DeleteSo TGD had only two flights today? IST and BEG?
ReplyDeleteThree flights, two destinations.
DeleteHow is that possible?
DeleteOS was supposed to have a flight on Sundays as well but they cancelled it about a month ago so TGD-VIE was down to 4 weekly, 2 on YM and 2 on OS.
DeleteI guess in retrospect they made a huge mistake as they would have profited like JU did.
What will happen to YMs E195s? Isnt it time Air Serbia leased a few E195 and serve destinations with lower demand, now it will take a couple of years for traffic to recover?
ReplyDeleteJU would then have 5 aircraft types. ATRs, E jets, A320s, B737s and A330. Too much for a small airline
DeleteLets also see what happens with the sole A330 in May 2021 following the EY divorce. Them JFK slots ain't so cheap...
DeleteThe lease for the A330 was renewed with a 50% discount so YU-ARA isn't going anywhere, no need to worry about that. :3
DeleteAnother gift for JU is that from 30.12 until March 2021 Turkey will require negative PCR test even for passengers who are transferring. I can see many walking away from TK as a travel option now.
ReplyDelete