Low cost carrier Wizz Air will maintain a single route from Sarajevo during the 2023 summer season. The airline will discontinue flights between Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital and London Luton from March 24. As a result, at this point, Sarajevo will no longer be linked to the UK market through nonstop flights during the summer months, with TUI ending its seasonal winter operations on April 2, before restoring them next December. Wizz Air’s sole remaining service out of Sarajevo will be Abu Dhabi, operated by its subsidiary from the United Arab Emirates. Services to the Emirati capital will be maintained four times per week during the summer of 2023.
Sarajevo Airport has been unsuccessful in retaining a nonstop service to the United Kingdom. In March 2007, British Airways introduced a three weekly service from London Gatwick to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital with its Boeing 737 fleet. However, flights were discontinued in October 2008, citing the recession and increased costs as a result of the global economic crisis at the time. In September 2019, FlyBosnia commenced a short-lived three weekly service to London Luton, however, registered poor results on the route with average loads on the Airbus A319 at just 10%. The flights were discontinued at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, after which the airline ceased all operations. Wizz Air commenced services from Luton to Sarajevo this March, following several delays. Its average load factor on the route has hovered around 80%. Leisure carrier TUI inaugurated a one weekly seasonal service from Gatwick to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital this Tuesday to cater for British ski holidaymakers.
Wizz Air shut its Sarajevo base in November citing inflation and rising costs for its decision. It terminated nineteen routes in the process and relocated its two aircraft which were stationed in the city. Sarajevo Airport has since issued a public call for airlines to submit their proposals for the opening of a base, in return for incentives. The airport launched a similar tender in 2020, which was won by Wizz Air. It was the only one to have applied. Under the terms issued by Sarajevo Airport this time around, interested carriers must open their base in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital next year in order to qualify for the incentives. Ryanair is believed to be among those interested. The result of the tender could potentially bring about the resumption of flights to London. The public call will close next Friday.
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It’s odd that this route just can’t work.
ReplyDeleteOdd? Who of Bosnians would want to travel to the UK, as long as they require entry visas from Bosnian passport holders. For travel to the EU, no visas are needed since 2011.
DeleteLol maybe us who live in uk would travel to Bosnia
Delete80% LF is great although probably insufficient for Wizz and for it to make money. They can probably put that slot into better use.
ReplyDeleteprobably it makes money but Wizz UK wants to use the plane for a route that makes more money.
DeleteYes it's probable. And unfortunate.
DeleteI didn’t know British Airways used to fly to Sarajevo. Come back!
ReplyDeleteYes good times
DeleteThey will also reduce LJU-LTN from 3 to 2 weekly.
ReplyDeleteSJJ lost a lot by Wizz Air leaving. I hope someone applies at this tender and establishes a base.
ReplyDeleteSo we loose flights to another major European and global city. Great.
ReplyDeleteSJJ focuses more and more to being connected with Middle East and Turkey
DeleteAnoniymous 09:53 please leave your persona prejudices based on your rasistic thoughts and try to logicaly understand how business work.
DeleteNo need to be triggered. SJJ in particular is liked by many Arabs and really nothing wrong with that. In SJJ you clearly see a good P2P summer arab traffic and now UK ski one in winter. Don't complain :) BiH can be a year-round destination if it wants.
DeleteI have no issue that SJJ has flights to Mid East. But I would also like them to have more flights to main European hubs.
DeleteBye bye Wizz
ReplyDeleteFrom base to a single route in a couple of months. Sad.
ReplyDeleteAnd it all happened just within a year
DeleteSo many key destinations missing - Paris, Brussels, Rome, Madrid... now London.
ReplyDeleteNo demand, Wizz tried and it failed.
DeleteBritish Airways used to charge £450 upwards for a return flight to Sarajevo where Croatia Airlines offered via Zagreb from £129 return so no surprise BA wearn't successful.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
DeleteBritish Airways still sells flights to Sarajevo via Zagreb every single day that it has a flight to Zagreb.
DeleteHow do they sell it via Zagreb? If they sell it via Zagreb they have to be selling some transportation between Zagreb and Sarajevo
DeleteFor no flights to London, complain to the UK embassy. It's the mess their government created
DeleteAnonymous 20:57 they have an interline agreement with Croatia Airlines!
DeleteOuch!
ReplyDeleteStill concerned about the state of this airline lately. Also quite odd to announce BEG base 8 months in advance and highly seasonal routes in August for only 2 months.
ReplyDeleteThey failed in Lanzarote as well and their reputation in the UK is getting worse....
So that's it from Wizz in SJJ? I mean ok, I know they closed the base but I was expecting them to keep a few routes. They had more flights to Sarajevo 5 years ago then they will now
ReplyDeleteSame! They used to have Sarajevo-Budapest
DeleteThey ended those when the Hungarian government stopped subsidising flights to Balkan capitals.
DeleteIt is a bit strange. Its a lot of diaspora in Europe. Strange they cant fly to Stockholm, Berlin, London even smaller cities like Gothenburg should have a market for it. Just dont have flights departure 05 or 22..
DeleteFlights to Tuzla feels like a poor solution. Most people wants to go to a capita or a major city in a region.
Strict visa policy is still a major deterrent and issue on this route.
ReplyDeleteSo which airline do people mostly use from SJJ to reach London?
ReplyDeleteI mean other than Wizz obviously.
DeleteBased on OAG data, Austrian Airlines is the main transfer carrier on the London route, holding 46% of the market, followed by Lufthansa, then Croatia Airlines and then Turkish Airlines.
Deletewow very interesting! Thank you. Do people use JU to get to London?
DeleteCroatia Airlines/ Austrian and Lufthansa are the main 3 that carry transfer passengers from Heathrow. Depending where you wish to travel to in Bosnia, a lot of people will also fly into Split and travel by road into BIH.
Delete@10.38
DeleteI highly doubt it. If a passenger from Sarajevo wants to connect onto an Air Serbia flight to London, their connecting time would be 18 hours! If JU could have a morning flight from Sarajevo like it has from almost all other destinations in the region than it would be possible but Sarajevo's work hours are the problem.
^ makes sense. Thanks everyone for the replies
DeleteAir Serbia did carry a good number of transfer passengers when they used to fly double daily to Sarajevo, but the Afternoon flight means long waits at Belgrade. I do know people that are happy to wait 18 hours for their connecting flight
DeleteAny idea how TUI is performing on London-Sarajevo route?
ReplyDeleteThey just had their first flight the other day. Its people with ski packages flying so I assume they wouldn't have started flights if they weren't full.
DeleteThat flight (Dec 20) got diverted to SPU because of weather.
DeleteOh ok, bad luck though
DeleteThat must have been torture afterwards to get by bus to Sarajevo.
DeleteI'm assuming badly since flights were on sale for just £99 return last week for a trip departing today (03/01). Also been diverted to Split again today lol.
DeleteI can only imagine how much money Fly Bosnia burned! 10% LF on flights to London on the A319. Nuts!
ReplyDeleteThe airline was most probably a money laundering operation.
DeleteNot probably, definitely.
DeleteWonder if they would still be around if it weren't for Covid
DeleteSad but I have a good feeling about SJJ and I hope this new tender works out.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed.
DeleteA network airline might have more success. With P2P plus transfer passengers
ReplyDeleteNone will have a success, so long as Bosnians can not travel there without visas
DeleteHopefully Ryanair will start its operations from SJJ next year
ReplyDeleteWould love to see easyjet start London-Sarajevo flights.
ReplyDeleteAs a brit who loves sarajevo and have only had the pleasure of flying direct once with fly bosnia(there were 7 of us on board) so not surprised they pulled the route. I find the biggest problem for the lon-sjj route is that people in the uk just dont know anything much about Sarajevo or 🇧🇦 so are unlikely to pay £80-150 maybe more for a weekend there. Companies like Ryanair will offer special fares to get the route moving but will want some kind of reward for doing it.
ReplyDeleteReally hoping that in a couple of years sarajevo/bosnia is the next top destination in europe (we can all dream!)
Even with that, flights could get more occupied only by the Brits flying to Bosnia (and back), while interest on the Bosnian side for flying to the UK will remain very low: just those traveling on business, and from tourists those holding a Croatian (or some other passport for which no visa is needed in order to enter the UK). Humiliating requirement for Bosnians to obtain tourist visas (while EU lifted them over 10 years ago) is so insulting, that only a handful would go through that ridiculous procedure.
DeleteExcatly @FFBikerSar
DeleteIt's shame that we need the visa. I am living in Germany, and I have plenty of connections to the UK and Ireland via Cologne, Hahn, Karlsruhe..., but as holder of Bosnian passport I postpone my trip to these two countries beacuause of visa regime. I'll travel there when I get German passport. So, no question why demand is low from Bosnian side!
Well done SSJ! You managed to chase away one and only affordable mean of air transport from your own capital city. Well done.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it better just have more flights between Belgrade and force a one stopper instead of forcing direct flights?
ReplyDeleteBefore 1992, SJJ had practically no international flights (except to Istanbul with Inex Adria, and occasional flights to Tripoli or Bagdad as Bosnian companies run construction works in Liby and Iraq), so if one wanted to fly abroad, we were forced to first get to Belgrade or, less often, to Zagreb or Split or Dubrovnik. I for myself have no intention of doing it again.
ReplyDeleteTerrible fog in Sarajevo today, Lufthansa was diverted to Zagreb and only later flew to Sarajevo after fog partially lifted
ReplyDeleteI flew to SJJ 5 times in the last 6 months. Each time the Whizz plane was full to the eye balls! Lots of tourists, some skiers, some visiting pyramids, some were going to Medjugorje, some on business. Cannot accept at all the argument that it wasn't commercial.
ReplyDelete