NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia and Bulgaria Air are expanding their codeshare cooperation for a second time this year. On top of the five Air Serbia routes the Bulgarian carrier has its flight numbers and designator code on (Sofia, Oslo, Ljubljana, Podgorica and Tirana), it will now begin codesharing on another eleven destinations. These include Air Serbia’s flights from Belgrade to Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dusseldorf, Prague, Sarajevo, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Tivat, Zagreb and Zurich.
Great news, this means that more frequencies on BEG-SOF will be added.
ReplyDeleteBy the way it's interesting that Bulgaria Air flies to Malaga as well!
Few know that the Málaga route is probably more than 15 years old. It was sometimes combined with Mallorca because of the Bulgarian diaspora. Now they face fierce competition with FR and W6 on the Málaga route and FR on the Mallorca route.
DeleteWow, I didn’t know that. Thanks!
DeleteBut no flights to black sea
ReplyDeletePuzzled that JU never considered Burgas. Even though it is a seasonal destination, has quite a lot to offer not only the beach. Used to serve around 3 million before the Covid and the war. Burgas has become more modern compared to Varna but smaller. They invested heavily in their port, infrastructure, city centre amazing sea garden and used to have year-round flights to Moscow because of the Russian community there. Oh well, Serbia ended up benefitting having more than 140,000 Russians. Good for them.
DeleteBulgaria isn't a popular destination for the summer beach tourism from Serbia (Belgrade/Vojvodina especially). Varna was previously served by JU seasonally but I guess wasn't able to adequately compete with OS, cancelling the route in 2017. Wizz later opened a base in Varna in 2018. Many destinations on Varnas destination list shows the main markets being around those that JU serve. I guess it's a route that might work better with a regional jet compared to the ATR that previously operated on the route. JU had a couple of routes that wouldn't work on the A319 and the ATR not being adequate (WAW, HEL, KBP).
DeleteBurgas seems to be a very UK centred market. JU really doesn't have anything to offer there. Not to mention the airport is highly seasonal with only 1 year round route to LTN. Not even a flight to SOF.
VAR used to be a quite seasonal destination but managed to become a more year-round which shows how TK, OS and W6 is working well for them (previously S7 also used to fly year-round). It is also a bigger city compared to BOJ with more universities, services, etc, but BOJ beaches are nicer :)
DeleteYes, BOJ is indeed UK orientated but also very Polish lately and yes, it is very seasonal unfortunately. I guess JU may try resuming its flights to VAR with afternoon flights similar to SOF and not midnight/early morning ones as it used to be.
Many destinationsbr seasonal, so why not try with varna. Ppl in serb have prejudice about bulg. This job need strong marketing.
DeleteGarbage.
Delete@dee
DeleteIf there was any prejudice, it would be with Albania. That however hasn't stopped over 100,000 Serbian citizens travelling to Albania in 2021. The Black Sea is faster to get to as the roads are alot better compared to those enroute to the Albanian coast. JU flew to Varna for 3 years before cancelling the route.
@14,39
I think the problem with midday flights back then was that it didn't fit the wave adequately. Roughly 1h 45min block time. The new structure of flights around midday would make it worth looking into.
Dee, I think the relations are improving. During socialist times, there was a bit of tension due to the stupid politicians as usual. According to the latest official data, Serbia was the 3rd visited country by Bulgarians in October and Serbians were the 5th largest group of visitors:
Deletehttps://nsi.bg/sites/default/files/files/pressreleases/Tourism2022-10_en_A7H10ZH.pdf
Thing is that travel from Western Bulgaria to Serbia is mainly via road. Flixbus costs only 35€ and takes 6 hours from Sofia to Belgrade. Eastern Bulgaria mainly coastal cities might have much more potential because Belgrade is closer to Sofia than Varna! :D
Would be nice to see them flying to BEG
ReplyDeleteSimilar to Tarom, they are in a deep hibernation with no ambitions. Their Embraers are currently flying for TAP. They cut already many destinations because of the fierce competition with Wizzair an Ryanair. No info about the 4 A220 order either. Typical for Yanko, he never likes revealing info.
DeleteWho is Yanko?
DeleteYanko Georgiev, the CEO.
DeleteAaaaa ... household name in Romania?
DeleteCapt Yanko Georgiev resigned from Bulgaria Air 2,5 yrs ago. Correct, till new A220 would become a reality, FB will not expand largely its network.
DeleteBulgaria is slowly becoming an ACMI operator, with most of it’s fleet being wet leased, which isn’t a bad thing. Maybe they’ll make agreements for the next summer about wet-leasing an AC from Bulgaria.
ReplyDeleteGood job Air Serbia
ReplyDelete