Sarajevo Airport is in talks with Ryanair and several others but has refused to say which airline plans to open a base in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital after winning a tender to station an aircraft in the city in return for incentives. Sarajevo Airport’s Public Relations Officer, Belma Čureković, said, “We are in talks with several airlines, and we are continuously in discussions with carriers based on demand indicators. After Wizz Air closed its base, we immediately launched a tender to find a replacement. We are in talks with both legacy and low cost carriers, among which is Ryanair. We have already signed a contract with an airline to open a base, but we still can’t make a public announcement on the carrier in question. The agreement must be ratified on behalf of our state and in line with our laws. We are also in talks with Vueling regarding flights between Sarajevo and Barcelona, however, negotiations have just begun”.
The agreement’s ratification is believed to be taking longer than expected at Bosnia and Herzegovina’s air regulator, which is thought to be the cause of the delay in making public the carrier which plans to open a base in Sarajevo. Ryanair currently maintains services to Banja Luka and Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina; however, it plans to discontinue services to the latter at the end of next month after the airport presented the airline with the obligation to pay passenger service charges to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Directorate of Civil Aviation for the preceding winter season. The carrier is subject to the same charges in Banja Luka, although the airport has chosen not to pass on the fees at this point.
Sarajevo Airport has posted strong growth during the first quarter of the year, handling 194.240 passengers during the three-month period. The figure represents an improvement of 9.6% on last year, which was the airport’s busiest first quarter on record. In March alone, Sarajevo Airport welcomed 76.193 passengers, up 8.4%. So far, Saudi Arabia’s Flyadeal is the only carrier to have announced a new route to Sarajevo, from Riyadh, however, a number of other airlines will strengthen frequencies on existing services including Air Cairo, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways. Last summer, Wizz Air operated up to 46 weekly flights from its Sarajevo base, which the airport hopes to replace this year with the yet-to-be-announced carrier.
How can you be in talks when you've already signed a contract 3 months ago?
ReplyDeleteThey didn't say it's Ryanair
DeleteOr maybe it is Ryanair and because of this dispute at TZL they are not ratifying the Sarajevo deal?
DeleteHope so
DeleteThis is turning into a saga
ReplyDeleteIt's not saga, journalists and portals are constantly publishing posts about Sarajevo base and people think it lasts eternal to reveal who it is. Contract has been signed and after ratificition we will everything about new carrier. We are all impatient, but posting news and saying nothing new about Sarajevo base is journalists' fault.
DeleteI'm surprised the airline hasn't given up yet. It's been how many months now?
ReplyDeleteThey announced that an airline has won the tender back in January!
DeleteIf it's a European airline, I don't understand what the Directorate needs to do and why do they have to ratify agreements. I don't remember them doing this for Wizz Air.
ReplyDeleteWizz has company registered in BiH,name wizz air Bosnia LLC
DeleteThem talking to Ryanair is a good sign, regardless if it's the airline that will open a base.
ReplyDeleteVery good result for SJJ in March, considering Wizz Air closed its base and there were the first 10 days of Ramadan.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIn the end, nothing will come of this base. It's April already.
ReplyDeleteStarting to think this too. They will miss the summer season if this keeps dragging out.
DeleteYes, why is everything so complicated in Bosnia.. ugh
DeleteYou and everyone else knows why it's so complicated...
DeleteIn 1995 an agreement was signed to create a convoluted system of governments to govern a small country.
DeleteAt least there are some positive developments at Sarajevo and passenger numbers are growing.
ReplyDeleteSJJ needs more European legacies.
ReplyDeleteIt actually isn't doing so bad. It has Lufthansa, Austrian, Turkish Airlines, Air Serbia, Croatia Airlines.
DeleteAegean would be a nice addition. Hope they come next year.
DeleteAnon 10:08
DeleteThat is terrible actually!
You forgot Swiss and LOT
Delete10:47 Aegean will return sooner or later.
DeleteHope so. I think ATH would work well from Sarajevo.
DeleteBA would be great please, would rather pay more to fly with them from LHR than that awful Hungarian Airline flying from LTN.
DeleteBA charged well over £400 for a return ticket last time they flew LGW-SJJ route, no wonder that didn't survive long.
DeleteThe thing with the passenger tax is wild. I wouldn't be surprised if FR leaves Banja Luka too.
ReplyDeleteIt's wild that the airports are not passing on the tax to the directorate when it is their obligation.
Delete1. The airports are not obligated to pass any money to the directorate. Why?
Deletea) BHDCA (Directorate of Civil Aviation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a state-level
regulatory agency (BiH-level), while the airports are entity-level companies (FBiH and RS).
All those taxes are filling the entities budgets, as prescribed in the respective entity laws that promulgate these taxes.
b) BHDCA is a regulatory agency (establishing laws, regulations, SERAs, SRPs, etc.) and can not make a profit, in stead of filling the state's budget, not it's own which is respectively spent on planned activities in forth.
2. Just an FYI, for instance, the money gathered from taxes on FBiH airport (excluding Sarajevo since last year) is supposed to improve aviation in Bosnia and Hercegovina, hence the name of that tax in the law: "Tax for the improvement of aviation in Bosnia and Herzegovina". There is no aviation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is dead. We could say there is some in the RS entity, but it is sparse even there. No money has ever went into "improvement" of aviation, it was just filling the budgets. No investment of the same as proposed. For the RS's part, I don't know of the tax in Banja Luka airport, to be honest. But it is probably the same case and same story.
I think the mystery airline may be Eurowings.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
DeleteThat MAX on the photo looks nice in the Ryanair livery.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many routes/ aircraft we could expect from whichever airline opens a base.
ReplyDeleteI hope that Ryanair will consider some leisure destinations from Sarajevo too like Corfu or maybe some Spanish destinations.
DeleteFingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteThe question is will any other airline have more success than Wizz. LCCs don't usually pack and leave after such a short time without a valid reason.
ReplyDeleteI think Wizz left more because of their internal issues than profitability at SJJ.
Deletewhat internal issues? They are doing fine elsewhere in Exyu
DeleteMaybe this tax is the issue because BHDCA said that it can ban Ryanair flights from any airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
ReplyDeleteIf the debt for TZL is not settled.
The best LCC airlines to open base in Sarajevo is not Ryanair but easyJet because it will be a better opportunity for SJJ to have flight to big european airport : CDG, AMS, MXP. I think Vueling could open flight from BCN and FCO and Ryanair could maybe open flight from BER and DUB.
ReplyDeleteThe delusion in these comments is astonishing. Do you seriously think Ryanair will fly DUB-SJJ?? And easyJet CDG-SJJ?
DeleteRyanair has launch DUB-TGD so why not SJJ. And for easyJet if they have the opportunity to start CDG-SJJ they could launch without problem
Deletedoest this mean they are no paying pax fee at all in BiH? Koji skandal
ReplyDeleteNije to više nikakav skandal, navikli smo na ove stvari. Nije skandal ako se ista stvar ponavlja bezbroj puta.
DeleteThey owe some tax revenue to LQTZ, which owes is to FBiH. All other deals between BiH and RyanAir are probably stopped until the mentioned is resolved, which is only fair.
They said, latest in April the flights will start. 😃 at the end it will be probably some Saudi airlines
ReplyDeleteThey should get banned for exploiting BiH airports on this level
ReplyDeleteIm thinking nothing comes out of this, it just doesn’t make sense to me, why keep putting it off and waiting? Route’s should be announced by now if they want to succeed.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteHopefully it will be soon
DeleteRyanair are hardly reliable partners.
ReplyDeleteIf Ryanair is the airline, what do you think could be the possible routes - I think a few German cities, Scandinavian flights, Milan (or Rome), Paris, Copenhagen..?
ReplyDeleteIf Ryanair open a base the possible routes could be the same that wizz air operate from SJJ. The Only difference will be to 1 or 2 airport like STN and BER but it will not make difference in terms of routes.
Delete
ReplyDeleteLike everything here it takes for ever or never to happen......maybe they wait for ramadan to pass and start working
And when we can expect Ryanair in Sarajevo?
ReplyDeleteSve u svemu eto Juni na pragu a od prizeljkivanja Ostalo nista. Memingen - Sarajevo ce cekati neko bolje sutra ali Do godine.. Mozda..
ReplyDelete