Several airports in the former Yugoslavia are set to benefit from subsidies provided by state or local authorities to airlines that are willing to establish operations. There are currently three public calls taking place related to Sarajevo, Ljubljana and Tuzla, with tender procedures for the upkeep of flights from Niš and Kraljevo to begin later this month.
The public call for airlines to launch operations or establish a base in Sarajevo closed yesterday, with funds to be made available to carriers that either introduce flights from a destination that has not been served in the past twelve months, start services to one of 26 destinations deemed to be of strategic importance, station an aircraft in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital or commence flights longer than six hours. The value of the subsidies has not been made public. During a similar tender earlier this year, three airlines applied - Wizz Air for its London Luton service, Jordan Aviation with plans to establish a base, and Bosnia Airlines, which does not have an Air Operator’s Certificate. Only Wizz Air met the tender conditions.
Slovenia has issued a third tender call for airlines to introduce new routes to the country in return for subsidies lasting over a period of three years. Although the public call includes all three of Slovenia’s commercial airports, only services to Ljubljana have garnered interest. The ongoing tender, for which the state has allocated 16.8 million euros in subsidies divided over three years, or 5.6 million euros per year, will close on November 27. The previous two public calls generated mixed results, which the government has labelled as “disappointing”. Luxair and airBaltic were the only two to apply. The national carrier of Luxembourg has since launched operations to the Slovenian capital, with airBaltic to follow suit with services from Riga in May of next year. Only airlines registered and based in the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) are eligible for the subsidies. The ECAA is made up of states that are part of the European Union, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Iceland, Macedonia, Norway and Montenegro. The Slovenian government is primarily targeting the introduction of flights from Vienna, Copenhagen, Madrid, Prague, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Oslo, Barcelona and Lisbon to Ljubljana, although all unserved destinations within the ECAA are eligible.
Tuzla Airport launched tender procedures to subsidise flights to the airport last Friday, with the deadline for the submission of bids expiring next Monday, November 20. The terms and conditions of the tender have not been made public and can only be obtained by interested airlines. The funds will be provided by the Tuzla Canton government. It has allocated roughly 1.27 million euros in subsidies. On the other hand, during the second half of November, the Serbian government will launch tender procedures for the upkeep of existing Public Service Obligation flights from Niš and Kraljevo from January 1, 2024 until December 31, 2027. Subsidies will be provided for year-round services from Niš to Belgrade, Cologne, Hahn, Istanbul and Ljubljana, as well as seasonal flights to Athens and Tivat. From Kraljevo, year-round operations to Istanbul will be subsidised, as well as seasonal services to Thessaloniki and Tivat.
Unfortunately very little interest for any of these tenders.
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, it seems most ex-Yu (capital city) airports are subsidising routes to the most basic of European destinations. I really don’t get it. If you can’t sustain flights to Paris, Amsterdam or Brussels without subsidies then you have a bigger problem.
Deleteits the other way, they (airlines) are underestimating some of the exyu capitals
Delete11:40 100 time you comment this congratulations
DeleteIt's a bot. Just read comments on older articles, like on topic of flights to Middle East from Ljubljana. Exactly same comments on multiple different articles.
DeleteYes and I will comment another 100 times. It's a sad fact. If you think it isn't that I don't now what to say.
DeleteI really hope for a better outcome for Sarajevo this time around and for the management not to waste time with airlines like Jordan Aviation.
ReplyDeleteWhen will we know the outcome of the SJJ tender? Has anyone applied?
ReplyDeleteYes, Bosnian airline without AOC or website
DeleteDamn :/
DeleteThey have instagram page imo is their real page.
Delete@9.14 is that confirmed?
DeleteWhats their instagram page called?
Deletehttps://instagram.com/bosnianair?igshid=bnIxczE4dHA0NzAx
DeleteIn my opinion this is their page^
DeleteAnother flop in the making.
DeleteThat is from a previous tender, where WizzAir UK was the only one that met the criteria. We dont know who applied for the new (bigger) tender, that one just closed yesterday.
DeleteThe tenders for INI and KVO are creared for JU. No one else can win
ReplyDeleteI wonder for which company PSO tenders in Croatia and subsidies in OMO were made for?
DeleteIt makes sense for national airline to get them, if fhe country has a local airline (and no local competitor)
DeleteThey are made for OU, Trade Air and ETF.
DeleteNo, they are not made for ETF if you read the actual tender documents. Only OU. Trade Air just gets a few routes OU does not want to operate because they would have to wet lease a plane.
DeleteThe Tuzla tender is hilarious. 10 days with no T&C's outlined.
ReplyDeleteThey probably have the winner before they even announced itm
Delete*it
DeleteThe situation varies significantly when airlines lack interest in certain flights such as OSI or OMO, compared to the distinct scenario where low-cost carriers are explicitly prohibited from operating on some routes, presumably to facilitate the exclusive operation of Air Serbia at any expense, as exemplified by the Frankfurt Hahn route. Furthermore, while any company can meet the tender conditions in all former Yugoslav countries, the conditions in Serbia seem tailored to be fulfilled exclusively by Air Serbia.
Delete^ What does any of that have to do with Tuzla Airport's tender to which comment you are replying to. I guess the daily vile against Air Serbia or Serbia has to be dropped somewhere.
DeleteGood luck. I hope they all manage to attract someone
ReplyDeleteIronic that the Slovenian subsidies didn't attract any LCCs
ReplyDeleteAlthough the subsidies offered are maximum allowed by the European commission, obviously this is not enough for the big three low cost airlines. In addition, they are all successfully demotivated by FRAPORT.
DeleteHow are they demotivated by Fraport?
DeleteWith adapting business policies to legacy carriers from LH group and star alliance, rejecting flexibility and service level requested by low cost carriers etc. And not to be misunderstood: they are the owners and they have every right to do so.
Deletesure that why lcc's fly to Fraport led Antalya and Burgas
DeleteIt really depends on how important the individual airport is for LH group.
DeleteUff Ljubljana is sooo important for Star Alliance, haha!!
Delete13:16,why wouldn't it be? You are trashing a country that is a space ship to yours. In everything. Every day...
Deletelol
Delete@13.26 maybe because of comments like yours?
Delete@11:07 What are those policies? I'm really curious, has any of the LCCs specified what are those policies preventing them from flying? Leave aside that they want free service, I just want to know if any of the LCCs has actually been denied slots or any of the service they have requested.
DeleteProgressive discount scheme (more pax/more discount), 25 min turnover time and state subsidies on airport fees. They got the latter, you can guess the rest.
DeleteNot to mention that even the govt gave Swiss money but to easyjet...
Delete@13.42 no they have not
DeleteStrange that Wizz or Ryan don’t try with Maribor airport
Delete@17:18 I would absolutely love to see it but it's not in the interest of the government that
DeleteMaribor was offered to Ryanair and Wizzair, but they were very clear - interested in Ljubljana to cover Ljubljana city and Bled/Alps catchment area.
DeleteBled with their 8k inhabitans?
DeleteTourism
DeleteSome people here still don’t realize, that most routes to LJU are established because of incoming turists and business travelers. They are prepared to pay much higher price than average Slovenian. No wonder, that we are still lacking early morning flights to hubs.
Delete350.000 foreign tourists arrived only to Bled in jan-sep 2013 and they spent 900.000 nights there. Ryanair knows what they are talking about.
Deletehe talked about "catchment area". Ryanair?
DeleteCatchment area applies also to territory, which attracts passengers. Ryanair was in discussion with the government a couple of times in the last two years. See lobbying register.
DeleteFingers crossed for ITA, SAS and Iberia for LJU.
ReplyDeleteI could see Iberia come back. They psrformes rather well that short period they flew during the height of Corona.
DeleteIberia and Aegean airlines are coming back.
DeleteOn Iberia's page Ljubljana is listed as one of the destinations but it's impossible to book tickets, so something could be happening...
DeleteHow are you so sure about it? Iberia wasn't flying to Ljubljana this year
DeleteSame as Aegean. It makes sense - the airline is eligible for subsidies only if it has not offered tickets for sale on the day it submits the application.
DeleteITA also has Ljubljana listed as destination - but i don't know if it's for codeshares or for actual flights
DeleteWould it make sense for ITA to start Ljubljana given the fact that Trieste has 3-4 daily flights to FCO and double daily LIN?
DeleteLjubljana website got Italian translation last week so my guess is that ITA is coming
ReplyDeleteOr they are trying to attract pax from Italy?
DeleteIn that case Croatian translation would be available as well
DeleteFair enough
DeleteAeroitalia could also be an option - or even SkyAlps, they have 10+ aircraft now
DeleteHighly doubt ITA is coming with Trieste next door.
DeleteWhy not. LH is flying to both destinations as well. LJU catchment area is also well to the north into southern Austria (Klagenfurt, Villach, etc).
DeleteFingers crossed. Maybe with their new A220s.
DeleteAs you keep seeing these subsidies it does make you think isn’t it better to drop political differences and look at the air Baltic model and say work with Air Serbia and use this money on a strong regional player as more of a long term plan. I guess Wizz or Ryanair will take the money and then when it has run out go, so they will continue to go through this process.
ReplyDeleteI also mean with multiple hubs
DeleteThe Baltic states are more equal to each other than the ex yugoslavian sates. Still Latvia profites the most because they own the airline but Lithuania and Estonia atleast don't have to pay subsidies to Airbaltics. Latvia is too small to be an transfer base for Lithuania and Estonia. Air Baltic still makes loses. Their loss is at the moment(€200 million euro) and in these 200 miliion the years 2020,2021 and 2022 are not even included. However between 2013-2018 they showed profites. And before 2013 they had big losses . In the financial world we call that the taking a bath-strategy. For example when you have a loss of 7 million you will report a loss of 50 million euro, so that the next 5 years you can report profites instead of reporting every year a small loss. You can gain public trust with this method.(I am not the Accountant of Airbaltics so I cannot prove they do that but I suspect that they are doing this).I think 1/3 airline use the taking a bath-strategy. But the point is that they are not a financial healthy company.
DeleteI think for JU there is no interest to start bases in other balkan countries. JU profites from many transfers from or to these countries. Why would JU risk to weaken there own base ,for other bases that have not the best demand.
To Anonymous 14:07
DeleteYou're talking absolute b*s*. And btw BT recovered quite nicely, making 9.1M euro profit in the first three quarters of this year.
The question is how many airlines know about these subsidies.
ReplyDeleteI always wonder that too. Do airports send out this information? Do they make it known to airlines in their talks?
DeleteYes they do
DeleteHope the subsidies will work and we get some new flights.
ReplyDeleteIf the past has taught us anything, it is not to get our hopes up.
DeleteWould be nice to see KLM in LJU. Obviously little chance due to problems at AMS.
ReplyDeleteKLM is not coming.
DeleteYeah, we won't see them any soon due to the AMS problems.
DeleteThe Slovenian subsidies aren't ideal but at least we got something out of it - Luxair and air baltic.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIt is is much cheaper than setting up a new airline.
DeleteYes, and the results are nowhere near as effective.
DeleteNice to see Sarajevo offering subsidies for flights over 6 hours. Might be a long shot but still, good for the effort.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they can attract something like Eastern Airlines to fly to ORD
DeleteEastern even put tickets on sale to SJJ a few years ago but it turned out SJJ didn't meet criteria of US FAA.
DeleteNo airline will open a base in SJJ and now they are offering subsidies directly from the city, since incentives from the airport didn’t work.
ReplyDeleteIt is really becoming crazy with all these subsidies.
ReplyDeleteYou can't expect more from markets/cities with low demand.
DeleteIt It shows that the markets are not very strong.
DeleteIf you don’t subsidize. The people from your country need to transfer and than you indirectly still subsidize an foreign career. I mean you don’t pay them to fly to your city but you are getting nothing back. No pilots employed, No stewardesses employed, no ground staff employed, less flights, less airports taxes, less tourists and transfering cost more money so for your citizens travel it will become more expensive. Basically you become an colony for foreign airlines where they can charge high prices because there is not much competition .
DeleteAnd in many cases it works to subsidize. Sometimes it just an little push in the back and eventually the subsidies are not gonna be needed.
Ljubljana would and should have airlines like: SAS, KLM, Iberia, Tarom, Austrian and even ITA and Bulgarian, but hey at least GP Airlines is going 3x weekly to Pristina in December
ReplyDeleteFraport says it is in talks with 20+ airlines so let's see. Maybe some of them apply to this tender.
DeleteI'm glad to see the positivity of you all saying that Ita, Sas, Iberia, Tarom and those will apply to the subsidy tender but based on the previous two tenders and the general conditions of the tender I just cannot see anything coming out of this except maybe but really maybe one single airline like Iberia for two or three weekly but even this would be a surprise to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen will we know the result of the Sarajevo tender which closed yesterday?
ReplyDeleteIt took them several months to announce that Wizz won the previous tender.
DeleteI expect one bidder for the Slovenia tender and none for the rest.
ReplyDeleteTuzla also has a winner. They just have to make a show about the tender.
DeleteGot to invest a bit to get something in return.
ReplyDeletePity no one is even considering Maribor as a possibility. The subsidies technically are applied to them too.
ReplyDeletePortoroz too
Delete