Turkish Airlines has scheduled flights to its newest destination in the former Yugoslavia, to Tivat, where it will compete directly against Air Montenegro. The seaside city will complement the carrier’s existing operations to Podgorica. Turkish Airlines managed to obtain rights to fly to Tivat following notable objections from the country’s national carrier which argued that the existing bilateral air service agreement does not allow its Turkish counterpart to maintain so many flights to Montenegro. However, ultimately, Turkish has been issued a permit and will commence a three weekly service from Istanbul starting June 11, each Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Flights will be operated by the Boeing 737-800 aircraft. The carrier also codeshares on Air Serbia’s flights between Belgrade and Tivat.
Air Montenegro plans to increase operations on the route this summer. It currently runs six weekly flights, which will increase to daily from June 1. In addition to its new Tivat service, Turkish Airlines is also maintaining double daily flights to Podgorica this summer, where it has established itself both as one of the busiest carriers, as well as one of the busiest airlines for transfer passengers, with final destinations such as New York, Tel Aviv and Ankara being the most popular. On the other hand, Turkish citizens can enjoy visa free entry into Montenegro.
Turkish Airlines has increased frequencies across its network in the former Yugoslavia this summer. The carrier is maintaining triple daily flights to Belgrade, eighteen weekly to Sarajevo, double daily to Zagreb, Pristina and Skopje, ten weekly to Ljubljana and up to seven weekly services to Dubrovnik. Furthermore, its lower cost unit, AnadoluJet, is operating a number of routes to the former Yugoslavia this summer. They include from Ankara to Belgrade, from Istanbul’s Sabiha Gocken Airport and Bodrum to Pristina, as well as from Antalya and Bodrum to both Skopje and Sarajevo.
Further flight details for the new Istanbul - Tivat service can be found here.
Excellent news. TK dominating the region.
ReplyDeleteTivat is literally unstoppable this year.
ReplyDeleteWith loss of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian market I'm not so sure.
DeleteOthers will come like Germans, British, Polish, Kazakh, French... and now Turks are going to come as well.
DeleteLoss why?? I thought the airplanes are not allowed not the citizens, if they have the money to travel of course. They can always come via Air Serbia or via Turkish airlines.
DeleteWhy do you think TK introduced TIV if not because of Russian citizen? Since there is still a lot of demand and JU is pressured not to increase frequencies, TK has the ideal position to take those passengers to both Turkey (with scheduled and charter airlines) and Montenegro.
DeleteWill it be seasonal or year round?
ReplyDeleteIt will be only for summer season
DeleteI always thought their 9th destination would be Split, especially since they openly talked about introducing it before Covid. Interesting that they went for Tivat instead.
ReplyDeleteAre you aware that there is war in Ukraine, and also that Russians can not fly directly to Montenegro?
DeleteHow is that related to my comment?
DeleteIt is related, because your comment indicates that Turkish needed to choose between Split and Tivat.
DeleteSorry, I still don't see what the war in Ukraine has to do with which destination Turkish Airlines launched first in the former Yugoslavia. Russian/Ukrainian transfers are certainly not what they rely on their Croatian routes.
DeleteOf course thst croatian route does not rely on transfer from Rusdia. But Tivat is different because most of Montenegro tourists before war was from Russia, and Turkish is one of the few airlines flying to Russia at the moment
DeleteYes, you have a point. I forgot they still fly to Russia.
DeleteDo these flights connect onto any of the TK waves? From the timings I don't think so but I'm not so certain of their wave timings.
ReplyDeleteFrequency wise, Air Montenegro has the better offer. But I wonder if that is enough to beat Turkish Airlines.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason Air Montenegro filed for so many frequencies was to repel Turkish Airlines from getting a permit. But since that didn't work I think they will cancel a bunch of flights.
Delete@Anonymous09:09 Absolutely not true. Air Montenegro planned this long time ago and they are not planning to cancel any frequency.
DeleteAt 10x per week, this route is going to become oversaturated.
ReplyDeleteAir Montenegro may reduce frequencies, even as early as this summer.
DeleteMark my words, they will decimate their network and redirect that capacity to TIV-BEG.
DeleteAgree with the above unfortunately. Air Montenegro can't compete with TK (like no other ex-Yu airline has managed to compete against it).
DeleteWell JU has successfully restrained TK and forced them to cooperate with them. They have an expensive and noncompetitive codeshare in place but still, it has allowed JU to keep daily flights to IST.
DeleteThe best solution now for Air Montenegro would be to do a codeshare with Turkish Airlines.
ReplyDeleteAir Montenegro is still not able to make codeshares with any airline.
DeleteWhy?
DeleteI believe they are still not part of IATA clearing house.
DeleteIsn't it twice daily to LJU? I swear i see them everyday twice.
ReplyDeleteOnly the first two weeks in May, then it goes back down to 10 weekly.
DeleteWhy did they let Turkish Airlines start flights if it is not in line with the bilateral?
ReplyDeleteWhat is better for an airline 10 flights with small plane or fewer with a bigger one. If done right?
ReplyDeleteMore flights is always the better, especially if you have competition.
DeleteIn other news, TradeAir is operating today's Zurich rotation instead of Air Montenegro. No idea why, but it's surely costly
ReplyDeleteThey have taken on too many charter flights (Tel Aviv) and now on some days they don't have enough planes. Can only imagine what will happen when Yerevan charters start.
DeleteTGD-ZRH has 52 passengers booked.
DeleteThey have taken up TradeAir a320 for the summer as a wet lease so this is planned.
DeleteAnonymous10:16 what a ridiculous comment. Everyone knows they have leased A320 for summer operations, this one (ZRH) included.
DeleteAnonymous10:18
DeleteTGD-ZRH has 52 passengers booked.
Why are you speading false informations, bot-boy? There is 140 passengers on that flight.
Because TradeAir has all 3 of their A320s booked, TradeAir will use 737-800 for Ljubljana charter today; not sure from which company, but they booked 737s for Rotterdam rotation
DeleteAnon 10.54
DeleteBecause I work at the airport and saw their loads for today, ZRH was among them. ;)
Anonymous16:09 Then you are maliciously lying because there was 139 passengers checked-in at the airport.
DeleteAnonymous11:12
DeleteIt was Aeroitalia Boeing 737-85F (9H-CRI).
Great news. Looking forward to seeing Turkish Airlines in Tivat.
ReplyDeleteWhy it's kept repeating that Air Montenegro has seasonal flight to Istanbul. They have operated IST from the start of it's operation back in June 2021 and continued to do so during winter season as well.
ReplyDeleteFlights didn't operate in January.
DeleteAnonymous10:46 Not true. They have been flying to IST in January.
DeleteThere were no MNE400 flights from 16 December until 6 February.
DeleteAnonymous10:52 again not true. Air Montenegro operated 2xweekly flights during this period. Re-heck your source of information.
DeleteYou can easily check on flightradar. There were no flights during this period.
DeleteAnonymous10:57 I can easily check my tickets as I was flying to IST during that time quite a few times.
DeleteSure...
DeleteThank you for confirming you have nothing of value to add to your statement.
DeleteI gave an actual source to the evidence that there were no flights
DeleteWell, you should probably question the source if for 24apr and 30apr 4O-AOA showing the plane is flying DBV-IST.... my 2c only.
DeleteAnon 11:12 https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/c3400#2ab25039
DeleteIf an airline chose to cancel flights during the worst few weeks of the omicron scare when countries started closing their borders again and air travel demand plummeted, I wouldn't consider that to be downgrading the route to a seasonal operation.
DeleteAnyway, where do you draw the line for something being seasonal? How many weeks of the year must have no flights, as a minimum? It's a tricky question. Surely, one week is too little, but how many are enough?
But Air Montenegro never stopper operating IST flights during winter. They had at least two weekly flights.
DeleteWould OHD make sense for them in the summer - Twice a week to start?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think?
Absolutely! Still don´t understand who thinks that wouldn´t make sense!
DeleteI would even suggest an yearround service
Deletetourists from which countries visit Ohrid? JU failed miserably a couple of years ago: https://www.exyuaviation.com/2018/02/air-serbia-to-end-ohrid-operations.html
DeleteOhrid should be a no brainer, double daily flights on the A350 right away!
DeleteOhrid is the Jerusalem of the Balkans and indeed needs more flights. If Dubrovnik can, then why not Ohrid?
Delete@anon 15:10
DeleteOhrid is a very popular destination in The Netherlands. It was made popular by a well known Dutch novel, plot of which unfolds in Ohrid.
TUI fly offers this summer season from AMS to OHD 2 or 3 weekly flight (depends of the week) and TUI offers From EIN also 2 or 3 weekly flight which also depends on the week. Also Corendon will offer a 2 weekly from AMS to OHD this summer. Which means on avarage that there will be every day a flight between The Netherlands and OHD.
Deletemissing cities in balkana: nis, ohrid, mostar, plovdiv, kukes, rijeka and so on
ReplyDeleteAko neko moze pogledati punjenja za TIV od strane TK,...bilo bi zanimljivo cuti komentar.
ReplyDelete