The Macedonian government has annulled a tender aimed at subsidising the launch of new routes from Skopje and Ohrid airports between 2023 and 2026. Wizz Air, Lufthansa and Aegean Airlines had applied for the subsidies for the introduction of an undisclosed number of routes, however, the government said all three had filed incomplete documentation. A new public call will soon be issued, and the entire process repeated. The previous tender ran from December 20, 2022, until January 26, 2023. It is not the first time that the government has annulled a similar public call. In 2018, the tender to subsidise the launch of new routes, which was eventually won by Wizz Air, was annulled twice, with the entire process taking over five months to complete.
Commenting on the latest development, the Ministry for Transport and Communications, said, “A Commission made up of members from several state institutions evaluated the submitted offers, and the Commission concluded that the airlines did not submit the complete documentation stipulated in the conditions of the public call. Accordingly, the Commission made the decision to cancel the public call”. It added, “The government of the Republic of Macedonia, through the Ministry for Transport and Communications, is strongly committed to this program which will improve the country’s air connectivity”. The Commission was to select the winner(s) based on the number of weekly flights offered on the new routes, the volume of passengers at the destination airport (the busier the airport the greater the chance of the route being subsidised), as well as the amount of offered capacity.
The 2022 public call, unlike the three previous ones, generated the most interest among airlines with a total of three submitting bids. Previously, all three similar tenders had only attracted interest from Wizz Air, which was the only one to submit offers in the past. The greater interest was, in part, generated due to a change in the tender conditions in an attempt to diversify the country’s offer of airlines and available destinations. Under the terms of the annulled tender, carriers applying for the subsidies had to be from Europe, have carried at least ten million passengers and generated 25 million euros in profit in 2019.
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Not again!
ReplyDeleteIs this done on purpose so Wizz is the only one left in the end?
ReplyDeleteWould not be surprised.
Delete@9.02 lol sure. CONSPIRACY!
DeleteA few years ago they disqualified Wizz because it had one letter wrong in the Ministry's address.
ReplyDeleteCrazy
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know with which routes these applied?
ReplyDeleteNo chance of the routes being launched in time for summer 2023.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't really make any sense knowing. Tel Aviv, Moscow, Doha, Dubai are all previous examples of important routes that did not manage to succeed in SKP due to the lack of demand. Ohrid lost super important London after so many years and especially in summer.
DeleteWell that is why financial support is being offered.
Delete09:54 Financial support for a route that existed for 8 years?
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/02/wizz-air-discontinues-longest-running.html
That would be very strange....
And how come Moscow didnt succesed? Nordwind was operating three times a week, the flights stopped due to the ongoing situation. Kyiv didnt, but i think Moscow was good.
DeleteYeah Moscow was operating great. Nordwind even launched St.Petersburg which they wouldn't have done if Moscow wasn't operating good.
Delete@10.28 that route was never subsidied
DeleteI am not surprised, they probably got a call from Wizz Air. Maybe they even bribed them. Corruption is widespread in North Macedonia so it wouldn't surprise me at this point.
ReplyDeleteNorth Macedonia is no more corrupt then any other ex- YU country.
DeleteWizz air was already chosen for the tender, why should they "call" anybody.
DeleteThis Bulgar troll in unbearable.
I think they are if Wizz Air manages to block any competition from entering the market. Remember when the government tried to bring another LCC? How long did that last?
DeleteThings like this can only happen in North Macedonia.
Macedonian corruption is at the level of Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia. That is very high.
DeleteNo, I do not remember when the government tried to bring another LCC. What I remember is these tenders going on every couple of year, where elligible carriers can apply.
DeleteIt may be that it suits Wizzair mostly but, nobody really stops Ryanair to flying fom/to SKP. I only don't think that the government wants to give them ridicilous incentives they require in order to do so-since there is already a LCC flying to SKP
Just look around you btw, in terms of LCC all airports in the region are either dominated by WIzz or by Ryan. Hardly any where both co-exist.
"nobody really stops Ryanair to flying fom/to SKP" - true, but perhaps there is a very good reason for this bypassing. They have been flying to Niš for many years now and Niš has both W6 and FR with no problem.
DeleteYeah INI has both cuz both operate on different routes, Wizz has covered almost all routes from SKP, and what is left for Ryanair? Weeze?
DeleteWhy did the North Macedonian government allowe for W6 to control over 75% of the market? Why didn't they do what BEG, INI and even BNX did by diversifying their offer? In Belgrade you have JU and W6, in INI JU,W6 and FR and finally in BNX you have W6 and FR.
Delete11:34 I think that the North Macedonian government has an inside deal with Wizzair and is kind of protecting them because they bring a large number of traffic especially serving the huge Albanian diaspora. But I agree with the INI and BNX examples of route diversification. Also skopie has a very few number of organised charters.
DeleteThe likes on INI and BNX are not really comparable to SKP, as these are secondary airports which are ready to offer more incentives so somebody would actually fly from there. Comparable example is SJJ, where it was either Wizz or Ryan.
DeleteAnd fyi, W6 does not control 75% of the Macedonian market, but 59.3%, it was reported here:
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2023/01/macedonia-to-unveil-airline-subsidy.html
The one trolling about corruption in Macedonia, is reminded about the most recent US sanctions about high ranking bulgarian politicians.
DeleteMakes you wonder how did this country even manage to become an EU member
@12:07 Precisely, because they are secondary airports - they have a much diversified bouquet of destinations where as in skopie it is much more concentrated in 1 airline. It reminds of airports such as Charleroi where FR is very dominant but the destinations are for business, leisure and other types of traffic.
DeleteIn general lines, BNX is really doing quite well but also BiH is a more touristic country compared to North Macedonia.
@12.43 lol sure
Delete11.51 lmao what did i just read... SMFH.
DeleteAmazing news. The country has so many ongoing more serious issues especially internally and externally. This money will be needed for other benefits Plus, they are having Lufthansa for the very first time in their history and is more than enough. In times of war and crisis, NMK should concentrate on the essentials and priorities rather than luxury options it still can't afford.
ReplyDeleteAir service is not a luxury. It is essential for the economic development of the country.
DeleteThis is 2023.
Thy already have Wizz Air which covers all main markets. There is obviously no demand for more flights. That is why the government has to pay airlines to fly there. North Macedonia is a small market, relatively poor with no corporate demand. There is only so much demand.
DeleteWizz Air got paid a lot to start those flights.
DeleteThe routes matured and now few of them require subsidies.
It is the same situation with this potential routes.
10:00 Very true. Wizzair cover 60% of their traffic serving mainly secondary and tertiary villages, where there is obviously demand. Was shocked to learn there were 3 weekly flights to Friedrichshafen - almost never heard about it. No corporate demand indeed. This is very tricky for small and poor markets. Also explains why they are not connected to main European hubs such as AMS or CDG for decades now.
DeleteThere is defenitly demand to AMS actually airlines like JU,Austrian,OU and LOT carrying every day passengers from AMS to SKP and it's one of the buisest not performed routes from SKP. In Paris there is not really a Macedonian diaspora but there still is Beauvais. And for example there are 30.000 Serbians living in Paris so no wonder why there are so many flights between BEG and CDG.
DeleteYeah, Serbian diaspora in France is not small at all. SKP-BVA exists because of the Albanians in France who are also not few. But, good point.
Delete@12.47 yeh sure because of the Albanians haha
DeletePeople don't forget that every destination in Skopje is there just because of the albanians! ..... l o l
Deletethat desperate troll gets deleted here on every SKP related article yet he tries again. Priceless!
DeleteWhy would Albanians fly to SKP when there are 4x flights from Paris to Tirana. Probably more Albanians connect via JU to Tirana then they use the Beauvais service to SKP.
DeleteIs this about Albanians from Albania or from North Macedonia?
DeleteNot enough brown envelops from the airlines?
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWhat are the points of these show tenders? Just give it to Wizz.
ReplyDeleteYou can in the Balkans...
ReplyDeleteBecause other 2 airlines didn't give corruption to the government, they had to cancel it, and for next call only wizzair will apply and get the subsidy (cuz already corrupted the gov for many years).
ReplyDelete+1
Delete@10.32 how many times will you repeat that nonsence today?
DeleteThis has nothing to do with the Balkans. From what I know there weren't any other places where they cancelled public calls as often as North Macedonia.
ReplyDeletethe previous 3 tenders were not in synch with EU standards and now they pretend to be as transparent as Switzerland because the EU is watching. Macedonia relies on the EU at the moment.
ReplyDeleteIf only the rest of the tender procedures in the country were as transparent as this one... even though as a aviation fan i am not amused
ReplyDeleteThey had one chance of having Aegean operate regular flights I don’t think they’re gonna reapply
ReplyDeleteTrue dat. Most likely A3 this year will have record traffic plus their new airline in Romania.
DeleteA3 have an Olympic bi-weekly turboprop service to SKP and even AT4 the 48-seater so, chances of them reapplying are quite low.
Delete@15.39 LMAO what kind of logic do you have. In that case they wouldnt even apply for the first time. SMFH
Delete