Flydubai has tentatively scheduled the resumption of flights from its Dubai hub to Skopje next year. The hybrid carrier plans to resume services between the two cities after three and a half years on October 30, 2023. Tickets have been put on sale. Operations will be maintained twice per week, each Monday and Thursday, with the Boeing 737-800 aircraft. Changes at this very early stage are highly likely. Over the past two years, Flydubai has scheduled and then cancelled plans to resume operations on the route on several occasions. Flights were initially to be restored in October 2020 but were moved to March 2021, then November of that year, before being shifted to late October 2022, which ultimately also failed to materialise.
Flydubai launched flights to Skopje in October 2012 and maintained the service until the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. In its last three years of operations, passenger numbers averaged around 27.000 per year. The airline saw a mix of point to point and transfer passengers on the route, with its close partnership with Emirates enabling connections to numerous destinations via Dubai. At this point, Flydubai plans to run flights to Skopje from Dubai’s dedicated low cost Terminal 2. This is in contrast to the airline’s services to Belgrade, Ljubljana and Zagreb, which run from Emirates’ Terminal 3, allowing for a more seamless transfer experience.
Skopje Airport has had no scheduled flights to the Gulf region since the start of Covid-19 with Qatar Airways also discontinuing its operations to the Macedonian capital. The General Manager of airport operator TAV Macedonia, Metin Batak, noted last month, “Almost all destinations maintained from Macedonia’s two airports prior to the Covid-19 crisis are now back, except for Doha and Dubai from Skopje Airport. TAV Macedonia is working to retrieve these two destinations, as they offered solid transfer connections for the Macedonian diaspora in Australia and New Zealand, as well as connections for travellers going to Japan, China, India and exotic destinations in the East”. Since the start of the pandemic, Flydubai launched operations to Ljubljana and increased its frequencies to Belgrade, while restoring flights to Zagreb, as well as seasonal services to Dubrovnik and Tivat, within the former Yugoslavia.
Further flight details for Flydubai’s planned service between Dubai and Skopje can be found here.
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I'll believe it when I see it. They promised to return so many times until now.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt would be beneficial if the UAE abiolished visas for Macedonian citizens.
ReplyDeleteabolished*
Deletewhat for? this route is for the australian diaspora.
Delete"According to OAG, in 2019, Flydubai/Emirates held 10% of the transfer market between Skopje and Australia. On the other hand, Qatar Airways carried 62% of Australian transfers."
DeleteI really wouldn't say its primarily for Australian diaspora.
27.000 pax per year in 2019 is not a lot if you compare that to q1-q3 2022 numbers in ZG and LJ
ReplyDeleteThat's why they didn't rush to resume SKP, market isn't that big
DeleteYes, but SKP was always 2x weekly while ZAG and LJU is double that.
DeleteYou also have to remember that prepandemic both QR and FZ maintained flights to SKP so a big chunk of passengers to the gulf or Asia or Austrialia also used QR
Delete@9.14 Dubai was 3 weekly pre-Covid.
Deleteits actually solid for 2weekly
DeleteFlights were 3 weekly before Corona.
Deletema kakvi. it was 3 weekly before Qatar came in
Delete27 000 passengers per year means that there were around 140 pax on every flight, which is 80% load factor when the flights were operating twice a week.
DeleteI'm a bit disappointed.
ReplyDelete1) They plan to fly with B737-800 instead of B737 MAX like everywhere else in ex-Yu. MAX has much better product
2) They plan to fly from Terminal 2 instead of Terminal 3 which is inferior in every way and make transferring to Emirates a complicated process (especially for old diaspora from Australia who, till this day, don't speak English).
3) Frequencies are very low
All very valid points. Couldn't agree more. It almost makes more sense just to fly with TK and transfer via Istanbul. I even know a lot of people who went to Belgrade and then flew with Flydubai.
DeleteSarajevo is also from T2 but yes I fully agree. Much better to fly from T3. T2 and T3 are not connected physically so you have to go on a bus.
DeleteIs there any capacity difference between the B737-800 and MAX8?
DeleteTheir B737-800 has more capacity - 174 vs 166 on the MAX 8.
DeleteSo these are mainly used by passengers flying to Australia?
ReplyDeleteAccording to OAG, in 2019, Flydubai/Emirates held 10% of the transfer market between Skopje and Australia. On the other hand, Qatar Airways carried 62% of Australian transfers.
DeleteThanks! wow that's a big difference
DeleteAdmin, that is a great vintage pic on the upper left corner, but I can't really see the details. It doesn't open properly-very low resolution
DeleteThank you.
DeleteBig network in the euromediterranean. Places like Ostrava (didn't even know there was an airport there) or Linz or Algiers.
Pointing these because I am not aware any of the ex yu carriers have flown to these destinations after Jat.
i guess most pax were to teh Gulf
DeleteDefinitely great network. JAT was the pride of Yugoslavia. We had destinations in the US 1990 other European Carriers were not flying, except maybe BA. Imagine SYD with JU DC10, AZ B747, OA B747, LH B747, BA 747. What a cool scenery...
DeleteDC 10 would've been with a stop over somewhere I imagine.
DeleteDXB and SIN.
Delete@JU520BEGLAX
DeleteBritish and JAT used to operate Pittsburgh. JAT, Sabena, Lufthansa, Air France, Swiss and British had operated Detroit. Los Angeles had JAT, SAS, Finnair, Alitalia, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France and Swissair. Chicago had JAT, Olympic, Alitalia, Iberia, Air France, British, KLM, SAS, Sabena, Swiss, Lufthansa, Aer Lingus. In New York operators were Icelandair, Aer Lingus, Aeroflot, LOT, CSA, Tarom, British, British Caledonian, Air France, Lufthansa, LTU, KLM, Sabena, SAS, Finnair, Swiss, TAP, Iberia, Alitalia, Olympic, Turkish and JAT. And finally, JAT was the one and only of all european airlines to operate Cleveland.
And talking about SKP, let me add one out of two weekly services from Sydney, Singapore and Kuwait had scheduled stop in SKP before coming to its final destination in BEG. It was few last years of B707 operations, before DC-10 was introduced and KWI switched to DXB
Delete@ pozdrav iz Rijeke
DeleteSR to DTW I cant remember, was it CVG? I know DL operated A310 ZRHCVG and DL and SR back in 1995 had code share
Hey @JU520BEGLAX
DeleteI was writing everything "from my head", so possibly I made a mistake or two, SR in DTW for example. Thanks for correcting! 😃
Let's hope this time it actually happens.
ReplyDeleteIt could be better to resume earlier to catch the AUS diaspora coming to Macedonia during the warm months
ReplyDeleteTo be honest it would be more beneficial if Qatar Airways came back
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I don't think we will see QR back in Skopje.
DeleteI'm really just curious to see what they end-up doing equipment wise after the Airbus feud.
DeleteThat had to put a dent in thirty growth plans.
flydubai are short of aircraft. That's why they are not starting flights to SKP sooner.
ReplyDeleteThey can always switch their narrow body to lets say A350 which are just sitting there and resume SKP :)
Deleteit's easier to serve this market via Sofia or Thessaloniki
ReplyDeleteFZ does not fly to Thessaloniki.
Delete@10.34 its easier to take Turkish or Pegasus to SKP in that case ...
DeleteFor whom is it easier? For the mentioned cities to fill those planes? For sure not for Macedonians who would have to travel three hours to the airport. Be there two hours ahead of the flight and plan a time buffer for crossing the boarder. You would have to leave the house 6-7 hours before the flight and then fly 5 hours. Plus someone has to waste a day and drive you there. That's 12 hours to reach DXB so no, for Macedonians it's for sure not easier to fly to those cities.
Deletevery good
ReplyDeleteHope they start earlier than planned.
ReplyDeleteLike someone said, I will believe it when I see it. Too many false starts from them.
ReplyDeleteSretan Božić
ReplyDeleteContinuous good news for Macedonia and Skopje. Let’s hope we get some more diversification. Next year looks to be a big year for Macedonian airports.
ReplyDeleteI just wish these started sooner.
ReplyDeleteWish it would be for the June 2023 but like the others, Id believe it when I see it happen! Also when it kicks off why T2 again? So much easier if all in same terminal espdcially for the older folk
ReplyDelete