EX-YU carriers remove 120 flights in December


The national carriers from the former Yugoslavia - Air Serbia, Croatia Airlines and Montenegro Airlines - have updated their planned operations for the last month of the year, slashing their number of services compared to initial plans just two weeks ago. Overall, the trio will now offer 209.052 seats on the market, down by over 16.200 from the last update, and plan to operate 1.970 flights, resulting in the removal of 120 services. 
 
Air Serbia 

From December 1 until the end of the month Air Serbia plans to run 956 flights (return service included) and has 108.768 seats on sale. Compared to two weeks ago, the number of flights have been reduced by 84 and capacity by 6.3%. Since the last update, the airline has suspended its operations to Thessaloniki. Therefore, it will maintain services to 28 cities from Belgrade. They include Athens, Amsterdam, Banja Luka, Brussels, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Istanbul, London Heathrow, Larnaca, Ljubljana, Moscow, New York, Oslo, Paris, Podgorica, Prague, Stuttgart, Sarajevo, Sofia, Skopje, Stockholm, Tivat, Tirana, Vienna, Zurich and Zagreb. From Niš, the airline will only maintain a single route, to Hahn, twice per week. Top routes based on frequencies will be Zurich, Podgorica, Tirana, Paris and Istanbul, while top routes based on capacity will be Zurich, Podgorica, Paris, Istanbul and New York.

RankDestinationTotal flights (one way)
1Zurich56
2Podgorica49
3Tirana32
4Paris31
4Istanbul31
5Tivat23

RankDestinationTotal capacity (one way)
1Zurich7.878
2Podgorica4.746
3Paris4.278
3Istanbul4.278
4New York3.048
5Tirana2.976

Croatia Airlines 

Croatia Airlines now plans to operate 744 flights (return service included) during the month of December, down from 750, with 70.770 seats on offer, down from the planned 76.414 seats two weeks ago. The carrier will maintain services from Zagreb to fifteen domestic and international destinations. Among them are Amsterdam, Brussels, Dubrovnik, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Paris, Pula (via Zadar), Rome (via Split), Sarajevo, Skopje, Vienna, Split, Zurich and Zadar. International flights will also be operated from Split to Rome, Frankfurt and Munich. From Zagreb, Croatia Airlines’ aircraft will frequent Dubrovnik the most, followed by Frankfurt, Split, Amsterdam and Zadar.

RankDestinationTotal flights (one way)
1Dubrovnik78
2Frankfurt74
3Split71
4Amsterdam30
5Zadar17

RankDestinationTotal capacity (one way)
1Dubrovnik7.728
2Split7.164
3Frankfurt6.372
4Amsterdam3.572
5Zadar1.292

Montenegro Airlines 

Montenegro Airline will run 270 flights (return service included), declining by thirty since the last update, with the capacity to welcome 29.514 passengers throughout the coming month, decreasing from 32.826 seats. It will operate flights from Podgorica to Belgrade, Frankfurt, Paris, Ljubljana and Zurich, while from Tivat it will only serve Belgrade, after cancelling plans to fly to St Petersburg as Russia has not given the go-ahead for the service. Most frequent destinations will be Belgrade, Frankfurt, Ljubljana and Zurich.
   
RankDestinationTotal flights (one way)
1Belgrade97
2Frankfurt8
2Ljubljana8
2Zurich8
3Vienna7
3Paris7

RankDestinationTotal capacity (one way)
1Belgrade10.614
2Frankfurt872
2Ljubljana872
2Zurich872
3Vienna762
3Paris762




Comments

  1. Anonymous09:02

    Just goes to show how dire the situation is at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous09:03

    I'm wondering from where did JU remove the most flights. It can't just be Thessaloniki.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:04

      Montenegro

      Delete
    2. Nemjee09:14

      Flights to MNE are not performing well overall, there aren't enough passengers. JU is around 50% and YM even less. Hopefully the situation stabilises soon enough so that airlines can start recovering, especially JU.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:17

      They aren't because of testing requirements. Montenegro asks its citizens to have a test in Serbia to enter Montenegro which costs 100 euros for them in Serbia. So add that to already expensive tickets, it's not worth it.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:23

      So no wonder why YM said that they might get grounded.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:15

      It is a big problem for those flights. Plus Serbian citizens also have to do the test but at least for them it's 50 euros.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:03

    Well, we're down to only three carriers.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous09:03

    I think the introduction of compulsory PCR tests for entry into Croatia and it seems Serbia will do the same will hurt both OU and JU even more.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous09:07

    Ironic that Montenegro has the single most capacity on a single route compared to the other two airlines :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:09

      They don't have other choice.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:09

      Plus they have the codeshare.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:11

      Not just capacity, the number of flights too.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:39

      More than half the flights OU will operate are actually domestic flights.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:15

      Makes sense. Domestic demand recovers first. This has been the case everywhere in the world.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous10:33

      Aren't most if not all of those domestic flights in winter subsidized anyway? OU got the money for these flights so they are not losing money. If they had to operate them on a commercial basis I doubt it would be that many.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous13:48

      One day these flights are not comertial viable and OU is "failing" on donectic market, but another day they are super profitabile and PSO is just illegal aid....

      Delete
    8. Anonymous13:50

      Anon 10:33
      PSO is not so big that they can recover empty flights every day. OU reduced lot of domestic flights because of low demand.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous15:06

      Ok but regardless what they have now is enough to be covered by PSO.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous21:46

      From where do you get info it is enough? Is 760 € really enough to cover the loses of one empty dash?

      Delete
    11. Anonymous07:08

      Are the Dash really empty? Also they get money from Dubrovnik and they got a new round of aid this year. OU is swimming in taxpayers' money.

      Delete
    12. Anonymous09:35

      That doesn’t mean it should operate additional emtpy planes.

      Delete
  6. Anonymous09:09

    YM capacity distribution ... shook

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous09:11

    Glad to see TIA among top 5 routes of JU

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:36

      I actually think JU is among the busiest non-local airlines in TIA. Next week they have six flights, 2 A319, 3 ATR and 1 B733. That's quite impressive and I think only Turks are ahead of JU. Even Aegean has 3 weekly on Q400 and OS I think five weekly on Q400.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:48

      It's because Ju has good connections with most big cities. Connection times are not bad either. Although, I would like to see them in Dublin. I have flown with them: Dub-CDG-BEG-TIA.
      Dub-Fran-TIA (which would be the usual route I'd take ) but LH does not fly to Dub at the moment and they now fly to TIA only once a day which makes connections time in FRA like 5-6hours.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:48

      I'm assuming transfers mostly?

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:49

      Lufthansa and Pegasus have daily flights apart from Air Albania, but still really good

      Delete
    5. Anonymous09:55

      True, LH has 6 weekly FRA-TIA on the A319. They did suspend MUC-TIA though. So they are just a little bit ahead of JU which is impressive. Really interesting that JU managed to build such a strong position in Tirana.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous10:00

      Btw LH is daily. MUC-TIA was replaced by FRA, it was never really meant to be operated at the same time. They gave the job to Adria, but that didnt end well. Eurowings will start it again on March lets see how that goes

      Delete
    7. Anonymous10:34

      Next week FRA-TIA has six flights, not seven so it's not daily. They probably recently removed one flight, I think it was on Tuesdays.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous10:43

      Ok then i was refering to November, schedules tend to change very often nowadays

      Delete
    9. Anonymous11:03

      Unfortunately they change for the worse. OS also reduced TIA, I guess it was affected by the termination of VIE-ORD.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous11:40

      JU does well in places like TIA and ATH because those places have an ok marketing budget. Last year JU spent €50.000 in Athens on promotions and whatnot. Twice they had marketing ads on Athens trams. If you invest in a market it will start paying off..

      Delete
    11. Anonymous14:41

      If you spend something like over a month in Greece, Facebook will start showing you ads for the Greek market (guess it thinks you moved or at least will spend a lot of time there). So I started getting JU's ads (in Greek) advertising both Belgrade and transfer options via BEG. Prices seemed pretty decent.

      Delete
    12. Anonymous14:54

      Good to hear that, definitely not the case in Albania though @11:40

      Delete
    13. Anonymous15:08

      That's because in Albania they focus a lot on tour operators which sell a lot of flights in Albania. This helped them boost flights which made them generally more competitive as they boosted connectivity via BEG.

      Delete
    14. Anonymous15:58

      Unemployment reach 450.000 in Austria, I expect OS to further cut TIA and their network in general as the economic performance of its citizens will be reduced.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous09:15

    In just two weeks they cancel 120 flights. Next week they will probably cancel the same amount.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous09:16

    Wasn't yesterday someone saying how JU suspended Prague, Sofia and how everything has collapsed? They are flying to Prague and Sofia normally. 28 routes in these circumstances is quite respectable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:22

      Yes they said how besides Thessaloniki they suspended Prague, Sofia and Bucharest which is not true. Only Bucharest has been suspended since March since Romania has a flight ban in force from Serbia. Same reason TAROM hasn't restarted BEG either.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:27

      Prague and Sofia may be scheduled for December, but currently they are not operating since beggining of November. You guys love to misinform

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:48

      Prague resumes on 18th of December, Sofia on the 20th.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:38

      Prague and Sofia will do really well once they resume!

      Delete
  10. Anonymous09:16

    JU's reduction is huge. 84 of the 120 flights cut are theirs!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:23

      They have the biggest network and amount of flights so...

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:27

      JU 28 destinations
      OU 15 destinations (including domestic with PSO support)

      Almost double

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:26

      Today JU has just 4 flights!!!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous10:26

      Paris, Zurich, Istanbul and Podgorica.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:35

      JU had 16 flights yesterday though!!!

      Delete
    6. Anonymous13:56

      Anon 09:27
      Do not count deatinations only. OU has from SPU more 3 routes, so it is 18 vs. 28. Still OU cut only 6 flights while JU 84. They have about 1.5 times larger route network while they cut 14 times more flights.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous14:01

      I don't know if you realise that Serbian citizens can't enter the EU. And this is in comparison to 2 weeks ago. OU made huge cuts for December earlier in November.

      Also since measuring whose is bigger, OU wages were late by 2 weeks in November. That says it all. It can fly to 100 destinations but it is bankrupt. Official explanation to employees was that there is no money and that management is waiting for government to inject funds.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous14:04

      And? I said something wrong?

      Delete
    9. Anonymous14:06

      Apart from the fact that you are selectively playing with numbers to somehow feel superior or better, nothing at all.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous14:08

      From where did you get that? You simply cannot say a fact which goes against JU? I would rather say that you feel jelaous.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous14:13

      Jelous of what? OU? Lol

      No I just dislike people trying to build some superiority complex without actually looking at simple facts. When you have the total number of flights cancelled by each airline in December 2020 vs December 2019, the passenger difference , load factors and revenues then you can boast. But you have none of those. So claiming superiority for an airline that is not making enough money to pay its employees makes you look desparate.

      I on the other hand didn't claim JU was the best and neither do I care.

      Delete
    12. Anonymous16:01

      OS doesn't even have 10 departures today guys. Aviation is collapsing all around us right now.

      Delete
    13. Anonymous16:29

      In the meantime Belgrade airport is using this downtime to keep expanding full steam ahead to 15 mil passenger capacity. Once global crisis is over Air Serbia will restore suspended lines, expand to new destinations and from JU's perspective.

      Delete
    14. Anonymous16:40

      Anon 14:13
      Neither I. But I dont see any problem when someone says a fact. It was misunderstanding, because i thought you are like some fanboys here. Cannot take any fact against JU.

      Delete
    15. Anonymous16:41

      Anon 16:29
      Yeah, only BEG will profit from this. Its not like expanison was planned and started before this.

      Delete
    16. Anonymous17:14

      No one said only BEG will profit from this. Expansion was planned before.

      Delete
    17. Anonymous07:09

      Actually the expansion will make them become more proactive in maintaining expansions plans and in attracting new carriers and airlines. I passed by the airport yesterday and the construction site is massive compared to the rest of the terminal, looks like double in size.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous09:23

    Carnage.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous09:23

    Considering the situation, it's good these 3 airlines are still standing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:34

      This time next year I think one will be gone

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:37

      YM most probably

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:38

      Well they are already saying they might be grounded and they have 90% of their flights to BEG which is not performing that well.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous09:48

      They will be grounded if they don't get state funding. There are rumors the new government does not plan on saving YM.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous10:36

      There is no need for YM. They should do what North Macedonia did and get it over with. MNE can profit even more because it's a summer destination, lots of tourism.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous09:30

    Zurich... Air Serbia's golden route

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:37

      Thanks to huge diaspora

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:37

      Yes but there is also huge competition from Swiss, easyJet and Wizz Air. I think they also have transfers which help.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:46

      I mean at this moment during corona, the diaspora has helped fill the planes on this route. I fear if they introduce PCR that will end. They are extremely difficult to get in Switzerland if you are not sick and extremely expensive.

      Delete
  14. Anonymous09:32

    When you have in mind that Serbia is not EU country and EU is closed for most of our citizens for months their network looks pretty impressive they are connecting Balkans with most important EU destinations. And hopefully they will not introduce obligatory PCR tests as they are basically pointless now when the virus is pretty much everywhere in and out.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous09:36

    Next couple of months will be very difficult.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous09:37

    Good luck to all three of them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:05

      They will need a whole lot more than luck.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous09:39

    JU, OU and YM still cut less in ex-YU than Wizz Air.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:04

      Because they can. JU, OU and YM, owned by governments can't because making money is not their priority. That's why all 3 are being bailed out.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:05

      Well, if flag carriers of their own countries would cut more than a foreign LCC than....

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:36

      I guess LH, OS and LX are also not in the business of making money since they were also bailed out.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous15:13

      Last anon: what is the link between the two? I may be after money, but fail.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous16:01

      One thing is for certain, OS is in the same group as JU, OU and YM. Perpetually loss-making.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous17:57

      OU is not perpetually loss making (although it is not money maker as well).

      And pls remember that OU pays rent for most of its fleet.

      The net result of ex-Yu airlines would be even worse, if they had to pay rent on most/all of their fleet, rather than exploit planes they had bought years ago at the expense of their owner (the owner that will never get any repayment of that investment). You may see this on the example of YM and its losses.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous17:59

      OU and JU own the same number of planes in their fleets.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous18:03

      Sorry I wanted to refer to anon 16.01 and meant OS and not OU.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous20:53

      OS has not had a profit in over ten years. They always show EBIT profit which is misleading.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous21:35

      Sorry, it is not misleading. Don't want to be rude, but if you have a basic knowledge of company valuations, THIS is a key parameter (and even more EBITDA).

      Delete
    11. Anonymous07:12

      EBIT profit is profit before taxes and interests meaning that there is still a large chunk of money they need to pay, especially in terms of taxes in a country like Austria. There is a reason why they are not showing the number after this and why LH is constantly insisting on them becoming profitable before they invest in their long-haul product. OS is not profitable and it has not been it for a few years now. With Wizz Air and Ryanair being the new sheriffs in town they are as good as dead. Even OS CEO said in an interview that many of their employees have to find another job because the basic salary they get now is not enough to get them by through the month.

      Delete
    12. Anonymous08:49

      I know what EBIT means:) If you want that your business pays less interest (you don't have to share what the business creates as an EBIT with banks and other lenders) just put more money as equity. Net result means you compare apples and oranges, because it is distorted by the ways a given business is financed. If I invest 10 and get 4 as a profit, I am more happy than if I invest 100 and get 10 as a profit. If a bank is happy to give 90 to my business and take only 6 in return that is great, even though net result of the business is much smaller: 4 versus 10 (EBIT being 10 in each case) (a simplified example, because of tax).

      LH is unhappy with OS, because it aims at a CERTAIN LEVEL of profitability. It wants to assure its stock exchange investors a CEERTAIN return on their capital and not just a return. It has to compete for investor's money on returns. These investors are not av geeks. They can move their capital to other businesses.

      As to Wizz/Ryanair: what airline would really make it well, having fierce competition on routes feeding its long haul (specially having a relatively weak O&D)?

      OS is hit by: a) small domestic market (O&D) compared to its lh, b) competition in southern/eastern Europe that rose in the last five or so years (mainly TK, but also LO, and on JFK in the Balkans JU). This is in principle a price sensitive market, but with no or limited competition in the past, they were able to get satisfactory returns and now with more competition this ended.

      Delete
  18. Anonymous09:47

    Imagine what February will look like. It's the worst month for the aviation industry even during the best of times.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:04

      Let's hope the virus situation improves somewhat by then.

      Delete
  19. Anonymous10:02

    I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel at the moment unfortunately.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Anonymous10:25

    The situation is really bad. Look at the airports today

    BEG - 9 departing flights
    ZAG - 8 departing flights
    TGD - 4 departing flights

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:26

      That's a disaster

      Delete
    2. Anonymous11:03

      BEG's situation is the worst on Tuesdays.

      If you look on another days you can find up to 30 daily departures.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:40

      Meanwhile

      SJJ - 1 flight
      PRN - 4 flights
      SKP - 1 flight
      LJU - 0 flights

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:44

      Wow LJU no flights? That's going to be bad. Where are the one flight going in SJJ and SKP?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:47

      SJJ is Pegasus flight to/from Istanbul, Skopje is Wizz flight to/from Dortmund. Skopje also has an arrival from Istanbul (Pegasus) in the evening but the plane does not depart until 2am tomorrow.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:52

      Is not the same every day... every day is increasing
      there are days where PRN or SKP have more then 10 flights per day

      Delete
    7. Anonymous11:58

      Tuesday is obviously the worst day for airlines and airport in ex-Yu.

      Delete
    8. Anonymous12:13

      Same in TIA, today there are 4 flights but usually its 10-15

      Delete
    9. Anonymous14:00

      SPU only 5. 2 direct flights to ZAG, one to ZAG via DBV, one direct to DBV with 19 seater, and one to RJK-OSI. Nothing unusuall for all these airports because Tuesday is usually the worst day in the week.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous17:51

      In the wider region (in the past 24h):

      - BUD: 6 flights
      - SOF: 13 flights
      - OTP: 12 flights

      Delete
  21. Anonymous12:44

    Tomorrow only 3 flights
    ist zrh cdg

    ReplyDelete
  22. Anonymous12:50

    I think many of the planned flights by ex-yu airines for the second half of December will be cancelled.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous12:51

    Thanks for the capacity/frequency updates. Interesting stuff

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous16:02

      If you like these updates then you should most definitely apply for the premium package. I already applied and couldn't be happier, great updates and tips from the fast changing world of civil aviation!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous16:37

      Interesting, i thought it started on 6 December though?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous19:38

      The author of this blog was caught posting himself comments, this is probably the same.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous19:47

      Hahahaha, well i would happily give 10 euros to ex-yu for all the work they've done through the years. Even though its a bit pricey for where we live

      Delete
    5. Anonymous19:49

      There are rumors floating around BEG offices that Purger moved to write for him and that is why there are almost no articles of him on T6.

      Delete
    6. No, I don't have the need to advertise (or write) in the comments section of my own site. You are welcome to subscribe, if not, no problem as you will have news waiting for you every morning for free on the site as has been the case each day for twelve and a half years.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous19:52

      Will there be updates at 10.30 and 13.30 or will those be gone?

      Delete
    8. And again to the comment at 19.49, Purger is not the author of any of the news items here, nor does he write for this site. If you have any other queries which are unrelated to the article above, you are more than welcome to write to exyu@exyuaviation.com.

      Delete
    9. @19.52 all news continues to be published as usual at the usual times. The newsletter is just an extra service. There will be no changes to the site or news frequency itself.

      Delete
  24. Anonymous20:35

    In aviation what we have now is worse than bad. Some day people here were discussing come back of KE on ZAG-ICN-ZAG.

    Here are exemplary loadfactors for ICN to Europe for July 2020 (peak of the season):

    FRA (LH) 30,2% (27 flights)
    LHR (BA) 24,3% (8 flights)
    IST (TK) 32,3% (16 flights)
    CDG (AF) 14,2% (27 flights)
    HEL (AY) 13,6% (24 flights)

    ReplyDelete

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