The two leading flag carriers from the former Yugoslavia, Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines, will see their busiest month in four years this August, as demand for air travel during the 2023 summer season peaks.
Air Serbia will lead the way with a total of 4.683 scheduled operations this month. The airline has put 568.676 seats on sale. August 7 is expected to be its busiest day, in terms of available capacity. This month, the airline has the most seats on flights between Belgrade and Tivat (42.268), followed by services between Belgrade and Zurich (26.464), and between Serbia’s capital and Turkey’s largest city (25.360). The carrier will deploy the Airbus A319 aircraft on 40% of all flights, followed by the ATR72 on 35%, the A320 on 9% of operations, the Embraers on 6.5%, the Dash 8 Q400 on 4.2%, the Boeing 737-800s on 2.8% and the A330-200s on 2% of all flights in its scheduled network.
Croatia Airlines is also expected to see a busy August. It has 2.564 scheduled operations this month, offering 272.998 seats on sale. August 31 is slated as its busiest day of the month in terms of available capacity. During August, the airline has the most seats on flights between Zagreb and Dubrovnik (31.530), followed by services between Zagreb and Frankfurt (22.320), then Zagreb and Split (21.412), and between Split and Frankfurt (12.128). The Croatian carrier will utilise its Dash 8 Q400 turboprops on 58% of all flights, followed by the Airbus A319s on 36% and the A320 on the remaining 6% of operations.
Overall, Air Serbia has increased its number of flight and capacity this August by 40% and 42.1% on last year respectively. In comparison to the pre-pandemic 2019, the number of operated flights has risen by 33.5%, while capacity is up 39.1%. On the other hand, Croatia Airlines has increased its number of operations by 3.6% compared to last year, while capacity is up 2.5%. The Croatian carrier is yet to recover its number of flights and capacity compared to the pre-Covid 2019, with both down 12.9% and 13.9% respectively.
Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines flights and capacity, August 2023
Capacity and flight numbers are great but the real metric of recovery will be passenger numbers and whether there is enough to fill those seats.
ReplyDeleteThe real metrics are RASK vs RASK.
Delete*RASK vs CASK.
DeleteCould someone please explain me what means in simple language CASK and what means RASK?
DeleteThanks.
CASK means Cost per Available Seat Kilometer. Or how much it costs to fly each passenger per Klm. flown.
DeleteRASK is Revenue per Available Seat Kilometer. Or how much the airline earns from flying each passenger per Klm. flown.
Thank you very much.
DeleteIt would be interesting to see which route is best performing. Both passengers wise and financially.
ReplyDeleteOn OU fleet utilization you say: " The Croatian carrier will utilise its Dash 8 Q400 turboprops on 58% of all flights, followed by the Airbus A319s on 36% and the remaining 6% of operations"
ReplyDeleteWhat does that mean?
On 58% of its flights in August they are using Dash 8s on 36% the A319 and on 6% the A320.
DeleteA320 is missing in the sentence.
DeleteΒravo Ηrvatska!
ReplyDeleteBravo OU! Bravo JU!
ReplyDeleteAirSERBIA🙌🙌🙌🙌
ReplyDeleteWhen will Croatia Airlines reach pre Covid flight levels?
ReplyDeleteThis year it is still "too early".
DeleteCroatia Airlines' fleet usage in August still makes me question their decision to become a one type A220 airline.
ReplyDelete+1
Delete+1
DeleteAnd even with a fleet like this their average load factor is 63%
DeleteYou are only partly right. And partly wrong. Q400 is keeping flying with OU. A220 is coming to replace A319/A320. Which means shrinking further. And keeping feeding Cartel with better LF but overall worse financial performance despite better LF due to enormous lease costs and peanuts they got for feeding. On the biggest ex-yu aviation market. So Bravo Hrvatska indeed!
DeleteDidn't they say that A220 would eventually replace both A320s and Dashes, and that they will have a single-type fleet?
DeleteThey said they would have bases in Skopje and Sarajevo and more
DeleteThey said they would operate long-haul
They said they would decently connect all parts of Croatia
And so on and so on
The number of flights is peanuts compared to other European airlines.
ReplyDeleteJU actually has among the highest number of flights in Eastern Europe. An even among European airlines it is quite high up.
Delete*and
DeleteNot surprised considering the number of new routes they added.
DeleteCompared to which European airlines, Air Albania, Bulgaria Air, TAROM, Luxair...? Or those are not European airlines in your classification?
DeleteNo, I meant European airlines as in airlines from the entire continent not just particular region.
DeleteFor an airline the size of Air Serbia, the amount of different aircraft types it is operating is a bit on the mad side.
ReplyDeleteDry and wet leasing capacity year round is harmful too.
DeleteThey had positive financial result.
DeleteAnd that is all that matters.
Just simple positive financial results are not the only things that matter, as you never know the impact on financial results of the current JU mess with delays and lost luggage. In my company in LJU, which works extensively with companies in the Balkans, the board of directors decided not to use JU anymore after losing a lot of money due to JU delays and frustrations with lost luggage. (One of our colleagues is still waiting for luggage from a flight more than a month ago.) We now have an additional company car and an agreement with a private car provider. Traveling may seem more complicated at first glance, but in fact, it is more efficient, and the decision has brought a kind of calmness among us.
DeleteYou forget to end you post with "take my boy scout word for it", analyst.
DeleteJU and BEG will have more pax next year than this and your LJU company might decide not to fly with JU but the affect will be zero.
DeleteConsidering that BEG and LJU are linked 2 or e times a day, I really wander how much money your company lost on "missed opportunities" due to missed meetings. Delays and cancellations and luggage problems are really not nice, but unfortunately they are a standard this and past summer and will remain in next years for sure. Long driving, traffic jams at the roads and the borders and times lost on the trips cannot compensate any of the delay happening with the flights, so o am sure the decision of your board of directors will be revised quickly and if not that your peace and calmness will be converted into dissatisfaction.
DeleteP.S. Who is carrying checked in luggage for business trips?!
I'm so happy that everything is just perfect with JU and all other decisions are questionable. Wishing you such perfection also in the future.
DeleteHis LJ company can switch to Adria Airways anytime lol
Delete@13:56 +1000
DeleteThat's a lot of capacity to Tivat.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's just from BEG (and only by JU). There are also flights from Nis and Morava.
DeleteAnd also flights by MNE.
DeleteAir Montenegro handed Air Serbia the very profitable Tivat route
DeleteAir Serbia could reach up to 3.5 million passengers this year
ReplyDeleteSo far they are on track.
DeleteAt this rate, they might overtake JAT's passenger record from 1987 by 2025/2026!
DeleteIt would be nice if we could projected traffic numbers for other airlines in the Balkans and Romania.
DeleteGreat. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteTivat is a "krava muzara" for JU, they are making serious bucks on this route
ReplyDeleteEspecially now when they have no major competition on the route.
DeleteYou forgot Moscow where the yield per flight is about 4-5x higher than TIV. JU prices for Russia are insane but people are still buying tickets as there is no competition.
DeleteTurkish, middle eastern carriers, Asian...? People make it sound like JU is the only airline flying in and out of Russia and using 30 A380's a day doing it?
DeleteNicely done JU.
ReplyDeleteNicely done OU.
Delete^ is it? They are not near recovering their pre Covid capacity and passenger numbers are down a lot. Yes, they managed a very small profit but the question is how much bigger that profit would have been if they were more creative, more agile and actually took opportunities rather than signing deals with record labels for discounts (the only reason that was done is because the CEO is an avid records collector). Unfortunately their market share is Croatia is now completely meaningless.
DeleteFully agree with @09.44 and just need to add that only someone detached from reality could write appraisals for pathetic feeder and humiliated servant full of corruption and incompetence which missed to take any opportunity and wasted all potentials of the biggest ex-yu aviation market.
DeleteYeah. It is kinda nice they're at least not in the red currently, and they were there by over 21 million euros this time last year. Hopefully they manage to stay in the black the entire year, which for OU would be a great achievement, given that it would be the first real profit in a long long time.
DeleteThe 2017. profit (if I'm not mistaken about the year), was the result of selling London Heathrow slots, and selling stuff had been their way of achieving "profit" for several years in a row even before that.
With all that said, we're yet to see what things will be like next year and the one after that, whether they'll be able to achieve something positive by utilize the new aircraft properly, in the optimal way. That would however require a complete turnaround in the way they've been doing things for at least 15 years now. It would require a radical mindset change with an an actual rational strategy, so I'm not holding my breath.
Basically, OU can surprise me only positively since mindless wandering and everything else like that is expected at this point.
Bottom line; as long as the taxpayers don't need to cover their losses, it's fine.
Anything more than that would be a miracle.
*utilizing the new aircraft properly
DeleteHope bookings are performing well.
ReplyDeleteMost of the routes that Croatia Airlines has not resumed from Zagreb are now on the airport's incentives list. Let's see if OU brings any of them back now so they are paid for flying there.
ReplyDeleteThey are not going to. The incentives have been on offer for months and no one has signed up to use them so far.
DeleteSo the airport now has to pay for routes they had just a few years ago for free.
Delete^ Yes, unfortunately.
DeleteGoes to show that domestic traffic plays a big part in OU's operations.
ReplyDeletewithout Dubrovnik they can close the company
DeleteLooking foreword to see what Air Serbia has planned for this winter.
ReplyDeleteI am afraid that they are not planning that far in advance.
DeleteWell the winter season begins in 3 months.
DeleteIn the other article it said that they planned this summer season in September and October and that they informed Airport in December.... So, if they don't inform you personally, it doesn't know they don't plan.
DeleteAnd just for the long haul, they spoke about the plans many times... They don't announce anything because they are waiting for the permits, planes, slots etc.
DeleteAlmost all European airlines are above pre covid levels this year so this is a poor effort by OU.
ReplyDeleteAny estimates on how many passengers Croatia Airlines could handle by the end of the year?
ReplyDelete1,6 million is my guess
Delete2.2 million
DeleteAnd load factor in 2019 was 73.6%
DeleteCroatia Airlines' Split operations are developing nicely. It would be good if they could extend some routes into the winter.
ReplyDeleteWhich ones could potentially work in winter?
DeleteSorry, I really don't think there are too many routes that could work from SPU in winter.
DeleteOnly if Hajduk plays EU league
DeleteCan you not put these two in same sentence, thanks.
ReplyDelete