Unfortunate

Interesting they keep Oslo with most competition.

The European Union hasn't banned British passengers coming although the Covid situation in the UK is much worse than here. Why the double standards?

Seems like there is most potential and they probably expect Norwegian to collapse.

Winter is coming!

Who knows how long the entry band are gonna last. It could be a very difficult summer.

Well at least they kept something.

True better than nothing.

Kind of expected this would happen.

Feel sorry for the people who purchased tickets.

Not true - once UK finalized its exit from the EU, 3rd country rules apply to them as well: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/04/netherlands-refuses-entry-uk-nationals-non-essential-travel-brexit-coronavirus

Because the UK market is much much more larger than BEG

Anon 09:07 that was a unilateral decision by the Netherlands. The EU did not ban traveling from the UK like they did for us.

Always the same story with WizzAir, big announcements but nothing materializing. Quite misleading to the passengers. I have nothing personal against them but I feel very bad for passengers who are mislead purchasing tickets and waiting long time to get their money back, if at all...

*bans

How would you call union of states within one continent? EU is founded on double standards or sometimes even triple or more even for its own members and you are complaining about them imposing travel ban on Serbia who is not even a former member of EU :-D

I believe they had genuine plans to expand their Belgrade operations. But I don't think they foresaw the travel ban, especially with them opening some non gasto routes this time around.

@09:10 Exactly!

Here we go again... The winter has only begun, and they are canceling summer routes. What the hell!

This entire pandemic is turning into a epic farse... First masks not required, now mandatory. Then world will not return to normal until vaccines arrive, now they say even with immunization it may take a years before we get to some type of normal. But they all agree the old normal will never return. Then I just read Germany will mandate FFP2 maks for use, saying that other mask don't do the job anymore. Covid passports, PCR, quaranteens... Meanwhile the global economy is dangling on the edge.. No wait, its over the edge holding on to dear life, while everyone just keep printing money and giving it for free to people. Free! Ask yourself if anything you ever got in life from government was free!?

Hang on everyone, this may last for years... But the real deal that will hit us will be financial tsunami! They realized the power and money they obtained during this pandemic is too sweet to give up, so they will just push on with harder lockdowns and more ridiculous measures that are designed to strip away your basic rights .

Read the other day, some airlines in North America are further cutting down their staff... Good luck to us all

Very sad

So for now 4 new routes from BEG this summer?

Which ones?

Stuttgart-Belgrade - Eurowings
Kiev-Belgrade - SkyUp
Belgrade - Sandefjord - Wizz Air
Belgrade - Hamburg - Wizz Air

But much more lost unfortunately.

If the Corona situation does not get under control I doubt even those routes will be actually flown.
But if it improves fast before Easter I can see many more who have been canceled to be back on schedule.

Just my2cents.

It was unfeasible of them to be operating 3 A321 out of BEG.

Will see a new ghost terminal

Let's see what happens with their planned Tirana base.

Are Albanians allowed to travel to the EU?

Still can't be worse than LJU's capacity expansion

No, they aren't

Part of the terminal expansion will be completed in September. Hopefully by then the industry will begin to recover.

This was very dumb from Wizz Air. They just revealed to everyone which markets/routes they will eventually launch, giving competitors like JU a good insight.

Way too much capacity, even if there was no pandemic, in my oppinion.

I think they can compete with JU. They will start Hamburg which was already served by JU.

We will see how things develop. Greece and Cyprus have already announced that any person will be able to enter without restrictions from March if they are vaccinated and they said this will be in the whole of EU.

While for those that are not there will be that traffic light system. The idea is that as people get vaccinated epidemiological situation in countries will improve so more countries should be on green list.

Yes but take into account that out of the non-EU ex-Yu countries only Serbia has so far started vaccinations.

This is a shame because the expansion would have covered some unserved markets such as Portugal and Finland.

Much expected having in mind latest developments. To add "Ryanair has also significantly lowered its traffic assumptions".

How many routes are confirmed suspended that operated in 2019?

When I said none of these would launch I was called a hater.

Unfortunate but understandable considering the circumstances.

Any chance they might launch some of these in 2022?

Some breathing space for JU.

And what will these competitors do, if operating these routes makes currently no financial sense?

More importantly, lcc try out many routes. It does not mean a given route they open would make sense even in non-covid times, and in particular for a legacy airline. If it is a miss, lcc will just close a route after two months.

The entry restrictions are having a real impact.

I guess. They are also being affected by these bans and restrictions.

They thought market would recover much faster which it didn't. In the end they lost a lot of money. They need to scale back their plans now to return to a more realistic levels.

Big announcements, taking the money, no flights eventually (no big announcement on cancellations). It became the business model of Wizz Air lately. Expecting the pandemic to finish in every three months (instead of facing the reality like every other airline) makes them a laughing stock. They were plain stupid to move to new markets during the pandemic and publicly refusing government bailouts. Now they will need one sooner or later.

They are lending money on the market. They don't need governments to do it.

You don't understand that pandemic times require flexibility. You cannot stick to your plans as the circumstances change all the time. It does not mean that planning is not necessary. They bet on covid being under control in Serbia this summer and missed. So now they react. If things change again, they will react again.

What was the number of pax at BEG in 2020? Or at least Jan-Nov 2020?

The point is that very few countries will manage to get a high number of vaccinations by summer. Israel, UK, UAE...

Dumping capacity everywhere hoping that the demand will just return in a blink of an eye was a big mistake.

Before Xmas, W6 had a total of 46 route cancellations including:

Bacau-Bologna/Treviso
Bucharest-Prague/Salzburg/Verona
Budapest-Glasgow/Hanover/Menorca/Santander
Craiova-Barcelona
Debrecen-Moscow
Doncaster-Eindhoven/Lisbon
Dortmund-Naples/Palagna
Gdansk-Bari
Riga-Bari/Hamburg/Trondheim
Skopje-Salzburg
Tallinn-Bergen/Trondheim
Tirana-Heraklion/Rhodes
Varna-Athens
Vienna-Bremen/Gdansk
Vilnius-Hamburg/Yerevan/Zaprizhzhya

Not surprised about BEG. They recently announced some expansions in Doncaster.

There is one positive note from all this, we have JU's BEG-OSL flights thanks to Wizz's announcement in June last year :D

True. We wouldn't have had JU operating this route if it weren't for Wizz.

"publicly refusing government bailouts"

How many governments where they have aircraft based have offered bailout and Wizz Air refused?

What are they gonna do with all their aircrafts? just park them?

How about waiting for something to happen and then act instead of betting on the virus to go away in every three months? They destroy all their credibility left. It shows that their management have no qualities other than pushing expansion. How come they are the only ones? Everyone else is stupid? Don't think so. Others just wait to see what happens before acting instead of failing again, again and again. All this with the big announcements and ticket sales in every other day makes Wizz come accross as pretty desperate for money lately.

just where is the "Real market conditions" - troll to post under todays article?

Well, if you vaccinate countries with large population number, it will have a positive indirect impact on WB countries cause the vaccine is supposed to stop you from getting very sick and from spreading it to other individuals. Hence, the EU might be more flexible with their strict measures. I believe the 2nd half of the year will see lifting of the bans for people in WB and it may be that those who are vaccinated will have no restrictions and those who do not want the vaccine may need to show a negative PCR test before boarding. As per Tirana, it looks like Wizz Air, if you refer to their website, are discontinuing flight from Budapest, Prague, Heraklion and Crete from March.

They refused government bailouts in general saying no airline should get them. As they expected that it will be back to normal last summer. It did not and it will not for a while. Now Wizz can either 1. watch all their competitors living on on government money while they lose theirs 2. lose face and take gov money as well to survive. Don't know which one is worse. They already took the 300m GBP loan from the UK gov despite announcing repeatedly that they have enough funds for years. Yeah, you bet they have only the shareholders won't allow them to spend it all on vanity projects in Italy, Norway and Abu-Dhabi.

TIA-BUD/PRG They are selling non-existing flights. If they will cancel them in the summer season, no way they'll just operate them in February and March, makes no sense

Yes, as they do now with 2/3 of their fleet.

Anonymous09:51 - you have clearly you dont know LJ airport. Old terminal is far from being a terminal. With our without covid Ljubljana needed normal building.

I hope JU starts Lisbon! Btw iz Wizz gonna complain now how this is all JU's fault bla bla bla.

New terminal? There is no new terminal, just an extension of an existing one. And yes, I can't wait for the arriving and departing passengers to be separated - it will indeed feel like a ghist terminal when that happens!

EU has absolute right to protect itself. Serbia should work much harder to enter Union to have some benefits.

Protect itself from what? Covid is everywhere! Shame on EU for discrimating our countries

Yeah, as if Serbia (or any other country) would give money to Wizz Air for their based aircraft in BEG, if they weren't generally against bailouts. Dream on.

Let's not forget that irresponsible behavior in Austria (Ischgl) brought the virus to Serbia. It did not jump straight from Wuhan to Belgrade. A must read: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/05/everyone-was-drenched-in-the-virus-was-this-austrian-ski-resort-a-covid-19-ground-zero. Pointing out the last paragraph from a citizen whose country "has absolute right to protect itself" (smfh) - "Could a small village really have gone on to infect the entire world? Ten million people? Surely not." Complete disregard for the entire continent from the EU.

No one is talking about the pathetic third aircraft in Serbia but about the other 130 lying around.

"non-EU ex-Yu countries "
What an interesting category...

Yes, because vaccination has begun in the EU.

Sad about Lisbon :(

which one are they going for? if its the Sinovac-vaccine (china) then good luck. newest brasilian test showed only 50.4% efficacy

If you are referring to Serbia people can choose between Pfiser (currently being administered), Moderna, Astrazeneca, Sputnik and Sinovac.

Wizz should start these routes
Beg varna
Beg lviv
Beg ohrid

Lviv/odessa

It is only allowed to start flights to EU plus Switzerland and Norway unfortunately. For it to start flying from Serbia to Ukraine and Macedonia they would have to renegotiate their bilateral air agreements.

In EU it is only Pfizer and Moderna. Astrazeneca may get approval by the end of month. The others did not even apply for approval.

How can you have a choice of the vaccine, if the demand is much bigger than supply? You cannot come and actually pick among several options.

JU exited VAR quite early unfortunately and also had a horrendous schedule. It's a bit too late now, W6 have expanded there already but can still compete with TK and OS.

Well in Serbia when you apply for interest to get vaccinated you pick which ones you want and you can pick all five or just one or some. I suggest stick to aviation in on an aviation website. Your desire to display how Serbs will be banned from EU even after vaccination is a bit sad.

He was first hoping you would say that Serbia got the Chinese vaccine. But it failed... Ironically Serbia started vaccinating with Pfiser before vaccination started in his own country.

I thought this was an aviation blog. Save your rant for your conspiracy sites.

Give the vaccine talk a rest.

OK. Would Bulgaria give Wizz Air money, if they asked? Romania? Poland? Austria? See where I'm going with this?

You have no clue which county would. Hungary, the UK and the UAE would for sure. And they will need to ask for IT sooner or later.

just in....

WHO warns vaccines won’t deliver herd immunity in 2021. “We are not going to achieve any levels of population immunity or herd immunity in 2021,” WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said from Geneva on Tuesday.

conspiracy you say? wake up!

anon 16:24

I was just replying to poster 15:19. No need for conspiracy theories. Have a good day.

anon 16:19

Bože koliko si dosadan...

aviation blog bro ... give it a rest.

Wizz should be denied using BEG as a base without a permit. If they request a permit they should also be denied.

Hahaha "have a good day". Btw the Chinese vaccine is from Sinopharm, not Sinovac. So the choice in the govt form is: Pfizer, Sputnik V (these two currently available), AstraZeneca (expected to be approved soon), Sinopharm (should arrive in Feb) and Moderna. Have a GREAT day!

Why is that and do you have a list of airlines that should be allowed in BEG? :)

Wizz is of course allowed to fly to BEG, but basing aircraft is different. Wizz does not have AOC in Serbia.

@Anon 19:53: Probably the one and only... :)

@Anon 20:00: It doesn't need to have Serbian AOC.

Can the rules be changed so it should need it?

Only if Serbia withdraws from the European Common Aviation Area.

Why would be the goal of demanding that Wizz Air has Serbian AOC?

If that's the case and DCV can't do anything, at least change to airport pricing and discounts could make Wizz reconsider expansion at Belgrade.

You're right...at least we'll be able to talk about paper airplanes and drones in the near future:)

Aviation experts already predicted that aviation will recover to its initial norms around 2024 if not 2025.

Yes, this is unfortunately what IATA said.

Why do this? Are there too many pax at BEG?

Apparently same problem as in ZAG

It seems that from BEG we are gonna keep flying with the 10+ year-old A320s (i was so excited about the idea of flying with the A321 or maybe even the A321NEO)...