Qatar Airways has seen pre-pandemic passenger levels on its flights from Doha to both Belgrade and Zagreb over the past three weeks during the FIFA World Cup, with the carrier deploying wide-body aircraft on both routes to meet demand. However, overall figures are yet to return to pre-Covid levels, with the airline still feeling the impact of pandemic-related restrictions in China, as well as most of Asia during the first half of the year, which has reduced passenger levels on its only two year-round destinations in the former Yugoslavia. The reopening of Australia earlier in 2022, which is a source of transfer traffic on its Zagreb and Belgrade routes, helped improve its overall performance.
Qatar Airways handled 24.799 passengers on its Belgrade flights during the first half of the year, down 42.7% on the same period in 2019 when it welcomed 43.333 travellers. Three years ago, Shanghai was the carrier’s top destination Belgrade passengers transferred within Qatar Airways’ network. This summer season, the carrier has maintained between five and seven weekly flights between Belgrade and Doha with the Airbus A320 aircraft. In 2019, services were operated between seven and ten times per week, mostly with the A321 jet. As part of the carrier’s preliminary 2023 summer network, flights to the Serbian capital will run on a daily basis with the A320.
The Qatari carrier welcomed 16.998 passengers on its Zagreb flights during the first half of the year, down 75.4% on the same period in 2019 when it handled 69.107 travellers. Three years ago, Bangkok was the carrier’s top destination Zagreb passengers transferred within Qatar Airways’ network. This summer season, the carrier has maintained between three and five weekly flights between Doha and Zagreb with the A320 aircraft. In 2019, services were operated twice per day, mostly with the A320 jet. As part of the carrier’s preliminary 2023 summer network, flights to the Croatian capital will run on a daily basis with the A320.
Qatar Airways is expected to finalise its network for the 2023 summer season towards the end of next month. The airline is yet to restore operations to Skopje, despite attempts by both the Macedonian government and operator TAV Macedonia for the Oneworld-member carrier to return to the city. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the airline has downgraded its operations to Sarajevo to summer seasonal flights. Services are currently slated to resume to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital on June 2 with three weekly rotations to be maintained until September 17. Qatar Airways was to launch operations to Dubrovnik in 2020, however, these were scrapped as a result of the pandemic. The airline is yet to restore plans to serve the city.
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I wonder why :D
ReplyDeleteThey have been flying these two routes with A320 / A321 for 10 years now I really hope they consider upgrading the equipment in the near future.
ReplyDeleteI could see them upgrading both the 787
DeleteKeep on dreaming.
DeleteSeems that the author of the post didn't read the article before posting...
DeleteQR has been quite successful in competing against Emirates in Zagreb. Smarter strategy by deploying narrow bodies twice per day and catching all connections in their network, rather than sending a widebody in peak summer and then having a few weekly flights with low cost in winter. That's why I think they should work on restoring frequencies rather then sending widebody.
DeleteQatar Airways has become very expensive.
ReplyDeleteUntil Covid it was one of the cheapest airlines from ex-Yu to Asia and Australia (if not the cheapest). But that was their strategy across Europe. They dumped fares to get people to fly with them. Now that they have the volume, they no longer have to sell cheap tickets.
DeleteMeanwhile the resumption of Skopje flights not even in sight :(
ReplyDeleteSKP seems to be definitely out
DeleteCan't they just merge SKP with either BEG or ZAG?
DeleteWhy would they do that if ZAG and BEG are performing well for them?
DeleteNo, they should launch Ljubljana and merge it with Skopje. I'm sure they would also get traffic rights between Skopje and Ljubljana which is much needed.
DeleteThat's not such a bad idea actually.
DeleteSKP will never be merged
DeleteWhy?
DeleteUnmergeable
DeleteDo they have any plans to start flight to Ljubljana?
ReplyDeleteI hope LJU will eventually happen.
DeleteSwap beg to 787 and use that a320 for lju flights
DeleteCan anyone calculate the average load factor based on those numbers?
ReplyDeleteIt is very difficult. At least in BEG they used A320s with two different configurations (one has more seats than the other) and also their frequencies often varied between five weekly and daily. Also they even sent an A330 a couple of times during the first half of the year.
DeleteWhat are the chances for them to restore flights to SKP? I've read in the news that the government and the airport management are pushing also, but how interested are Qatar to realistically restore flights? They are short on planes in their narrow body fleet and I'm not seeing them expanding until they start getting the 737's which is until 2025...
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that they would have used the opportunity of Flydubai not flying to SKP.
DeleteIf not to Skopje, at least they can return to Thessaloniki, so we can have a connection with a 60 to 90 minutes drive to the airport... :)
DeleteI wasn't aware they flew to Thessaloniki
DeleteI was first suprised why they didn’t come back to SKP because I thought that most routes recovered close to or even pre covid levels. But that doesn’t seem the case for BEG and ZGB which are quite far from pre covid levels. If you look at SKP pre covid levels it was barely enough for Qatar to Launch a flight to SKP but probably still enough. If SKP has similair recovery rate as BEG and ZGB it’s understandable they haven’t restored SKP yet.
Delete^ True that
DeleteStrange they never launched TIA
DeleteConsidering the demand from the Middle East for Albania this summer, I'm sure they will come.
DeleteWorld's best airline according to Skytrax.
ReplyDeleteI hope they return to SKP
QR closed their Skopje office at the end of 2019. Not sure we will see them back.
DeleteThey closed many offices because they reorganized their sales network. They closed the ones in BEG and ZAG as well and it is all covered by Rome office now.
DeleteThey still have multiple representatives at Zagreb Airport.
DeleteYou didn't understand me. They have closed their city offices in both cities (and many others in Europe). They still have airport staff in both cities. They have a job opening in Belgrade as we speak being advertised on their careers website. So yes, they have staff.
DeleteWhat were QR's frequencies to SKP before corona?
DeleteDouble daily in winter, and triple daily in summer
Delete@10.35 it was 3 weekly throughout the year.
DeleteThis SKP route existed just because of the Australian diaspora. It was more than evident. Unsure why the diaspora no longer visit the country frequently as before. Maybe some lost their jobs or inflation is too high.
Delete"The Qatari carrier welcomed 16.998 passengers on its Zagreb flights during the first half of the year, down 75.4% on the same period in 2019 when it handled 69.107 travellers"
ReplyDeleteOuch. But it makes sense because I assume their flights were mostly filled by tourists from Asia.
Yes, very inbound heavy.
Deleteand in the first half of 2022 they flew max 3 er week to ZAG. JAN-MAY was more like 2 x a week. Not sure about BEG.
Delete@Anonymous09:07 During first 11 months, Qatar Airways flew 120 times to Zagreb, carrying 17000 passengers giving you an average of 141 pax per aircraft, mostly with A320, not sure about you, but in my book that is very good load factor, 81% at least, more likely 86%.
DeleteI wonder how impacted they will be in the future from the launch of nonstop flights between Serbia and China.
ReplyDeleteThey will probably offer cheaper fares and many will choose them because of it.
DeleteThey had a very good summer in Belgrade this year. Were overbooked on several occasions.
ReplyDeleteThey are benefiting from a lack of Etihad but China's closure is still problematic.
DeleteThey should really use the opportunity of Etihad leaving the Serbian market. In 2019 EY had an average load factor of 98%. That's massive considering they had daily flights,
DeleteAh I remember the day when they used to fly Doha-Budapest-Zagreb and Doha-Ankara-Belgrade :D
ReplyDeleteThey also flew Doha-Sofia-Belgrade for a while too.
DeleteI'm surprised that their A330s have bigger capacity than their Dreamliners..
ReplyDeleteGood luck to QR on their ex-Yu routes.
ReplyDeleteNot bad. Wonder how they compare to Flydubai with their figures on these routes.
ReplyDeleteFZ has more passengers for sure because they have more flights. But the passenger structure between QR and FZ is very different.
DeleteIt's impressive how well QR does in Belgrade since TK went triple daily and FZ double daily.
DeleteTrue. The key is Australia. TK doesn't have those passengers and our diaspora doesn't like flying the EK-FZ combo.
DeleteFZ is mostly point to point nowadays, QR is all transfer.
DeleteLast year Indian passengers (undergoing quarantine in Serbia) were their saving grace. This year it is diaspora from Australia :)
DeleteI think that two daily flights on both routes would work best for them because of connections but probably at one point they will switch to B787.
ReplyDeleteTime for B787 to ZAG and BEG.
ReplyDeleteHad there been no Covid they would already been operating widebodies, at least to Zagreb.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI'm keeping my fingers crossed that Qatar Airways is Air Serbia's new codeshare partner.
ReplyDeleteI'm referring to this
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2022/12/air-serbia-to-add-new-middle-east.html
I wish Air Serbia worked more closely with Qatar Airways.
DeleteI doubt it will be them. I think it's probably going to Royal Jordanian since they will likely start flights to Amman.
DeleteWho knows. Maybe Duncan Naysmith pushes it through.
DeleteHuh?
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2022/07/former-air-serbia-ceo-moves-on-to-new.html
DeleteDon't think it's his job to decide on codeshares ;)
DeleteI believe Air Serbia and Qatar Airways already have an interline agreement in place
DeleteIt is possible that there will be more P2P pax in the future considering Doha will become more popular now after the World Cup.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly they seem to have better loads to BEG and ZAG then to SOF and OTP where they often combine the two cities into one service.
ReplyDeleteThere is much more demand to UAE than Qatar in both countries. Bulgaria recently opened a tour operator office in Dubai in November.
DeleteSo BEG had more passengers than ZAG?
ReplyDeleteYes but they had more flights too.
DeleteHopefully in the near future we will either see wide body or more frequencies to/from BEG, ZAG.
ReplyDeleteExcellent airline
ReplyDeleteThis summer on a flight to BEG they didn't load a lot of people's luggage from Doha. They apologized on the aircraft saying that there is cargo and not all the bags could fit!
ReplyDeleteSend bigger machines.
ReplyDeleteWith these passenger numbers? No way.
DeleteWhat are their frequencies to other cities in the region like Budapest, Sofia and Bucharest?
ReplyDelete4x weekly Budapest, 3x weekly Sofia and Bucharest
DeleteI'm surprised about Budapest being so low. I mean they have Emirates and Flydubai flying there.
Delete4 weekly BUD, because of World Cup. After the end of it, its gonna be again 7 times a week
DeleteVery interesting that Qatar is doing very well in ZAG and BEG while Israel doing great in SOF/VAR & OTP./CLJ. I remember those crazy number of flights from Israel to BEG. Now, there are very few flights.
ReplyDeleteWho would have thought Bangkok was their busiest connecting route from Zagreb. Guess the AirAsia consider Bangkok - Zagreb makes a bit more sense now.
ReplyDeleteAnd when I suggested here OU should have introduced NYC and BKK at least a decade ago, along with significant growth of regional network on one side, and widespread codeshares to all over North America, and Far East /Australia on partner airlines, on the other sides, I almost got killed by kradeze bots and uhljebs who pretended not to be kradeze bots and uhljebs. Maybe my suggestion makes a bit more sense now as well, not for them though....
DeleteThese are actually very good numbers if you divide by the number of flights operated.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI can't understand why they don't launch LJU...Turkish and FlyDubai are pulling big numbers and i don't doubt that it would be any different with Qatar...
ReplyDeleteIt's not the same thing.
DeleteThere are no any big numbers about Flydubai in LJU. Almost every month they are reducing their initial plans and reduce many flights in advance. That market is healthy but not so big and can not have any more gulf carriers for sure.
DeleteI am not impressed at all .
ReplyDeleteWith what exactly?
DeleteMuch less from flydubai passenger numbers from Belgrade and Zagreb , Doha is not holiday destination but just transit point. Flydubai operate twice daily Belgrade and 4 Zagreb per week. Qatar dramatically reduce sales staff in Serbia and Croatia . Not interesting for this markets.
ReplyDeleteQR operated Zagreb twice daily before Covid
DeleteWhen Asia reopens again, then will be more flights again, especially in Zagreb.
DeleteFleet shortage is a big issue for them
ReplyDelete