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Sarajevo Airport’s management has met with representatives from low cost carrier Vueling over the potential introduction of flights between Barcelona and the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. “Negotiations over the introduction of nonstop flights between Barcelona and Sarajevo have begun. Representatives from Sarajevo Airport are currently in Barcelona where they are holding talks with Vueling. Participating and supporting the ongoing negotiations is the government of Catalonia, the Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Spain, as well as the Fortuna Tours tour operator from Mostar”, the airport said in a statement.
There have never been scheduled flights between Sarajevo and Barcelona. Based on indirect passenger volumes, Barcelona is currently Sarajevo’s ninth busiest unserved route in Europe and is well ahead of Madrid based on traveller demand. Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa handle the bulk of Sarajevo’s traffic to and from Spain. Flights between the two cities would benefit the Bosnian diaspora, which is mainly situated in and around Barcelona, tourism demand on both ends, as well as religious tourism from Spain headed to the Medjugorje site near Mostar.
Vueling has a limited presence in the region of the former Yugoslavia. It currently maintains seasonal summer flights from Spain’s second largest city to Zagreb, as well summer services from both Barcelona and Rome to Split and Dubrovnik. Vueling is owned by International Airlines Group (IAG), the parent company of Iberia and British Airways. It is Barcelona’s largest airline. Demand for flights from the region to Barcelona has grown significantly over the past few years. This summer, Belgrade will boast sixteen weekly flights to Spain’s second largest city, Dubrovnik eight weekly, Split seven weekly, Zagreb will have five weekly rotations, while Podgorica will offer two weekly services to Barcelona.
Bravo Spanish tourists to Bosnia !
ReplyDeleteWill be very nice !
It will be Bosnian tourists to Barcelona!
DeleteI think both. Each country has got its unique beauties. Greetings from Serbia!
Deletea truck full of logs = Bosnians on an excursion
DeleteFinally. Hope they start flying
ReplyDeleteConsidering the management announced they are in talks, I assume it will.
DeleteYes I think it is a done deal.
DeleteIt could work
ReplyDeletePrepare for Vueling flights at ungodly hours
ReplyDeleteJokes on them, Sarajevo doesn't work half of the night
DeleteIt will soon
DeleteYes but don't forget that SJJ is going to be open at night so Vueling must be extremely excited!
DeleteMost of their Zagreb flights are also late at night. And often very delayed.
DeleteUngodly hours? I presume that no flights at all is mych better option...?
DeleteIs Sarajevo Airport really that convenient for pilgrims going to Medjugorje? How long does it take from Sarahevo to Mostar?
ReplyDelete*sarajevo
DeleteIt is not convenient at all. Split is and will be much better option.
DeleteMost pilgrims that visit Medjugorje fly into Split.
DeleteSA-MO is realisticaly 2-2.5 hour drive (car-bus), which is exactly the same as Split. So that story about Split is complete BS... Medjugorje pilgrimage is too long for 1 week tour. So komb. SA-MO-Medjugorje is a better fit for tourist, 3 places, not just 1.
DeleteAnonymous @ 14.18 it is not BS most pilgrims that visit do fly into SPU. It's a fact whether you like it or not!
DeleteMost pilgrims do fly into SPU because it has better flight connections. SJJ is improving but SPU still has more options.
Deletea better question is: is Medjugorje a scam? The answer is: yes.
DeleteThe airport should first stop mucking around and reveal with who they agreed to station an aircraft. Priorities please
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey will soon
DeleteThat is highly confidential information at the moment.
DeleteGreat. Then they can launch flights for the management of the airline and airport and keep it confidental. They are making it out as if Emirates is about to base an A380 when it will likely be some no name airline that will pick up and leave within 2 years.
DeleteSKP-BCN failed despite having a much larger catchment area and better road connectivity. I wonder if SJJ-BCN is doomed to fail in the same way. I mean being the 9th busiest unserved destination from an airport that handles just over a million passengers isn't exactly encouraging.
ReplyDeleteI think SJJ is way much more interesting as a city compared to SKP as well as BiH itself. Personal opinion.
DeleteAn by your knowledge a non stop route, operated by LCC, doesnt generate new pax?
DeleteIt usually does but the real question is how many will it generate and how generous will those passengers be when buying their tickets. SJJ is notoriously low-yielding which is why airlines are not exactly rushing to launch flights.
DeleteSJJ is low-yielding because it does not spend on marketing or advertising
DeleteIf it's so intereting why did Wizzair shut it's base in SJJ? I mean ofc Wizz is not the most reliable airline but if pax os good and they could sell tickets for good prices they wouldn't have done that. They shifted to Tuzla, because it's nearly the same market and it wasn't worth flying to SJJ for an handful extra tourists.
DeleteLow yield? Have you ever seen regular LH/OS rates for most of the connecting flights? It's all but cheap...
DeleteNemjee, SJJ and SKP catchment areas are literally the same.
Deletehahahahhaahaha no it's not. SKP has all of Macedonia and then at least 3 million people living around the country. They all use SKP to fly.
DeleteBosnia has a bit more people than Macedonia and roads there are so bad that only people from Sarajevo fly from there. Others use Croatia, BNX and TZL
Macedonia 1.8 million,
DeleteBosnia 3.1.
Both are tiny, but that's still a million plus. Beside having more highways roads in Macedonia and Bosnia are equally bad. The entire area of Sarajevo, Eastern Bosnia, central Bosnia and parts of Zenica and Tuzla canton represent catchment area and these areas are home to 1.6 million people.
SKP-BCN did not fail, it was just stopped amidst Covid-19 and hasn’t resumed (yet) because of Wizz’s capacity issues (which stem from both the issues related to Airbus deliveries and capacity deploying to new markets, Saudi Arabia to name an example) and focus on the better yielding routes.
DeleteLet’s not forget that 2023 will be probably the first full year of travel without interruptions (Q1 22 was severely affected by Omicron and travel restrictions were only getting relaxed within Q2 22), add on top of that the uncertainty related to the Covid (nobody willing to book flights outside of a short term frame because of the repeated restrictions).
IMHO SKP-BCN was a good performer, it is obviously not Malmö, Dortmund or Eindhoven, but I am confident it will come back sooner rather than later, as the interest for Barcelona (and broader Iberia) is steady and even growing in Macedonia while also having the means to attract curious Spaniards visiting Macedonia, which occupied a rather large section of the seats on the SKP-BCN flights.
Macedonia has highway to Thessaloniki, Nis, Belgrade and so on. Bosnia is covered in bad roads all around.
DeleteBut BiH has more airports and technically more visited as a country compared to NMK.
DeleteI reallllly hate the airline because of its chaotic management and delays but good to see SJJ seeking for an Iberian connection. Barcelona is a city when you can always visit summer of winter and Spaniards love the Balkans a lot referring them as "Países del Este" or the Eastern countries.
ReplyDeleteFlights to Spain are much needed
ReplyDeleteDoes Vueling offer the opportunity of connecting flights. For example say they start Sarajevo, could you buy with them Sarajevo-Madrid via Barcelona?
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteVY have always sold BCN as their hub. They have an excellent coverage to mainland Spain, the islands especially Baleares and Canarias. Thing is, the high speed trains are now really getting more coverage in Spain and the airlines might lose a lot of costumers. There are already 3 high speed Low-cost trains in the country and you can reach Barcelona-Madrid in 2,30 hours for just less than 20€ ahead of time. Not to mention the new trains from Madrid to Málaga. Train stations in Spain are amazingly positioned, trains are punctual with toilets, clean and reliable. I do not know how future airlines will compete because the train service is simply very good and anyone will prefer to take the train from downtown Madrid to Barcelona or now Valencia and Málaga,
DeleteYou probably meant; "trains are punctual, (also) with toilets". The beauty of the coma.
DeleteNo, trains are punctual with toilets. I am irregular when not on a train.
DeleteIs there anything official regarding the stationing if a plane in Sarajevo?
ReplyDeleteVueling is the best LCC they could get from Spain because people will be able to connect onto other flights too.
ReplyDeleteHow many weekly flights could we get?
ReplyDelete2 summer seasonal at most.
DeleteWhat happened to news that SJJ agreed with an airline to station an aircraft? Seems a bit off, why would any airline wait absolutely last minute to announce tickets?
ReplyDeleteIs it safe to say that the airline base deal fell under?
ReplyDeleteJU offers SJJ-BCN tickets for as much as 155euros return on economy light with only one hour transfer time, in a price sensitive market I assume people would go with the cheaper option.
DeleteEven in BEG, Vueling was not cheaper than AS and Wizz...soooo good luck
Good job now bring back Aegean too with year-round flights to Athens.
ReplyDeleteCould both BNX and SSJ work year round?
DeleteHighly doubt it.
DeleteVueling is not a perfect airline but still it was the first from Spain that discovered that Europe doesnt end at Lipovac ..
ReplyDeleteWasnt it that Belgrade got flights to Barcelona with them even after Skopje and even Timisoara got them with Wizz ?
Just because of that i am grateful for them .
Spanair flew BCN-BEG long before Vueling arrived.
DeleteVueling took over when Spanair went bancrupt .
DeleteJat Airways flew occasionally to Girona in the summers .
Ljubljana actually was the first airport in the former Yugoslavia that got sheduled flights with Adria Airways to Barcelona El Prat already in the 1990ies .
Not so sure about it. As far as I remember, it was JAT starting operating BEG-ZAG-BCN and BEG-DBV-BCN first, and Adria started LJU-BCN few years later. Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I don't remember Adria operating BCN before JAT did.
DeleteBy the way, are the talks between Sarajevo Airport and Ryanair still ongoing? It's been taking ages to come to an agreement... Since October last year!
ReplyDeleteToo bad Air Serbia is not ready to station an aircraft in Sarajevo. With their recent success in Spain Air Serbia could easily fly to several Spanish destinations from SJJ.
ReplyDeleteWell Sarajevo is not in Serbia, so they cannot just send an aircraft and station it there. SJJ is not important to ASL as a transfer destination, because the most potential transfer passengers from SJJ and its catchment area are handled by DLH, AUA, SWR, CTN, and the second season in a row by LOT for western routes. THY and FDB for the eastern ones - and QTR is also restarting flights. SJJ's importance to ASL as a source of transfer passengers is highly overestimated (mostly by the users of this board from Serbia), otherwise we would have seen ASL upgrading its SJJ route ATR-72 to a bigger plane. Ditto BNX, particularily after WZZ and RYR started operated from there. [SK]
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