Air Serbia is temporarily suspending a further two routes in its network during the slower winter period. The carrier will halt flights from Belgrade to both Hanover and Hamburg. The last service to Hanover will run on January 26, after which operations will be suspended until the start of the summer season, on March 31. Furthermore, the airline will temporarily suspend its Hamburg service for one month, with the last flight scheduled for January 29. Operations on the route will resume on March 4. February is considered the slowest month in the aviation industry.
The suspensions will result in Belgrade temporarily losing flights to Hannover, while Hamburg will continue to be served by Wizz Air three times per week during the affected period. Air Serbia currently maintains operations to both Hannover and Hamburg twice per week over the winter season. Operations to Hannover were introduced in 2022, while Hamburg was inaugurated in May of last year. It initially launched flights to Hamburg on a year-round basis in 2016 but later downgraded the service to summer seasonal operations, which ran until 2019, after which they were discontinued until last year. Since the start of the winter season, all services to Hanover were operated with the Embraer fleet, bar one which was maintained with the Airbus A319 aircraft, while Hamburg saw a range of different equipment deployed including the Embraers, A319s. A320s, and Boeing 737-800s.
As previously reported, Air Serbia is also suspending flights to Naples, Izmir, Salzburg, Cologne, Gothenburg and Ankara until the start of the 2024 summer season on March 31. With the addition of Hannover and Hamburg, three of the suspended routes will be on the German market. In 2023, Germany was Air Serbia’s largest market, based on the volume of provided capacity, wth over half a million seats allocated between the two countries. Despite the temporary suspensions, the Serbian carrier has said it plans to grow in the coming period. It has announced the launch of a new service to Mostar, commencing in late April, and has said, “We have plans to launch new routes between Belgrade and China [in 2024] and we are working diligently on this. Apart from China, we will also try to add some new cities in Europe and the region to the network and increase the frequency of daily and weekly flights to our most popular existing destinations”.
Better than loosing money.
ReplyDeleteYes the same as Croatia does.
DeleteUncombarable considering that with these suspensions Air Serbia serves 71 international destinatioms from Belgrade, while Croatia Airlines has 13 from Zagreb.
DeleteBecause they do not start routes they can't sustain.
DeletePretty good if Air Serbia can sustain 80 routes for 10 out of 12 months of the year. As for Croatia Airlines pity it can't sustain nonstop flights to Rome. Or flights to Berlin, Prague, Madrid, Stockholm...
DeleteOf course they can make it work. But they don't want to do it. They feed LHG in MUC and FRA for everything. It's the consequence of company being run by Mafia through incompetent and obedient puppets executing orders. And yes, 13 and 70 routes can't be compared, not even in a dream. And btw, they did fly to Berlin, Prague, Madrid and Stockholm. And many others. And they had long-haul services to North America announced. Until Mafia took over and destroyed everything for personal benefits and interests.
DeleteI am not surprised by HAJ but I am by HAM.
ReplyDeleteThey failed once already there and are competing against Wizz Air. I'm not that surprised.
DeleteIs this the second route overall where Wizz beat them? Other being NCE.
DeleteThere was MLA in the past but JU is back and they seem to be doing quite ok right now.
I guess that market is more cost sensitive in winter. I flew with Wizz to Hamburg several times (mind you it was all in 2022). Their A321 was full in both directions. In summer, I think JU gets quite a bit of transfer traffic on this route.
DeleteI flew with Wizz to HAM 2-3 times last year. The LF was good but prices were between 9 and 29 euros so I guess they are struggling with yields too.
DeleteThese routes should have been summer seasonal.
ReplyDeleteWhy? It seems to work for them in November, December, half of January, and in the case of Hamburg for the whole of March too.
DeleteWe don't know how they performed in November, December and the first half of January. It could be that JU gave them a chance to improve before finally pulling the plug.
DeleteI highly doubt they didn't perform well. There is a reason they increase almost all destinations from mid December to mid January every single year for almost 10 years. Especially on gasto heavy routes like Hamburg and Hannover, they certainly had good loads.
DeleteThey usually increase them for less than a month, from 15.12 to 10.01.
DeleteHannover doesnt have really good loads. I think the frequency is the reason, and the fact there is not much serbs in this area (most are west and south germany)
Delete09.02 Absolutely not. Better advertising, lower price during February and March.
DeleteBecause of Christmas in march.
DeleteAnd these couldn't work even with Embraers?
ReplyDeleteNo they will just park the aircraft
DeleteAll Embraers are in the air.
DeleteIf you are the only airline that flies to Hannover and you suspend it , then you understand that something goes wrong also the rest of the year for this route .
ReplyDeleteNot really, it just shows that the route has seasonal demand because it depends almost purely on diaspora traffic.
DeleteSome time ago I wrote stagflation will cause serious effects when it comes to demand for air travel from western Europe (especially Germany).
DeleteRising costs and non-existent economic growth will no doubt keep on depressing demand. Gastos are among the first to be affected and they are an factor in our region.
Lufthansa is booming with profits and average fares in Germany are rising by double digit percentage figures year after year since 2022.
DeleteAnd TUI Germany is doing better than ever. It must be only the gasto routes that are doing poorly.
DeleteThey certainly are booming when together with the government they got rid of all major competition in the last 5 years by killing all local airlines one by one. Lufthansa, Eurowings and Lufthansa Group rule the German market.
Delete@9.35 why don't you read what Ryanair has said about the German market?
DeleteAnd when you compare Germany's performance in 2023 to 2019 you will see that they failed to reach pre-covid levels. Why is that if Luthansa and TUI are making a killing?
DeleteAlso Lufthansa can invest a bit in their product from all those millions they are making.
There are many reasons: January is a slow month, it’s a route highly dependent on p2p. With low frequencies you can not generate much transfer passengers. Most gasto go for Christmas so obviously almost no one is going now.
Delete@9:40
DeleteIt's not all about numbers of pax and operations. Post covid air travel is more profitable cause fleet cuts reduced airlines capacity which can't meet the much bigger demand. As a result fares have gone up bringing in lots of money. On top of that covid cost cutting has reduced the operating losses further improving profit, so they certainly are making a killing
But Ankara and Izmir are not in Germany, nor in Western Europe...
DeleteI'm wondering if the suspensions are purely commercial or have something to do with the fleet. I notice quite a few of their aircraft are out of service, presumably getting maintenance.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is commercial. One person I know arrived from AMS on Sunday evening and another flew to IST yesterday and both told me that LF was nowhere near 50% (B738 and A319). I know two flights don't mean much but since it's the second half of January we are talking about I guess the situation isn't much better on the other days.
DeleteAPC and APO are currently under maintenance in Naples.
DeleteI also think that this, in part, is due to their fleet. Ankara and Izmir might have issues with Turkish.
DeleteI flew them prg beg adb and the flight to adb was full. I am surprised that adb flight is gone. They also could cater to Turks in Germany. Both Turkish and Pegasus are gauging these people so bad that air Serbia can benefit from this competition.
DeleteAny idea what are the loads on these routes?
ReplyDeleteSuch a shame,
ReplyDeleteSo that's 8 routes suspended. Not good.
ReplyDeleteIt's just for 2 months. If it means they don't lose money during that period then I am all for it. They have over 70 other routes operational during this period. It is more than obvious that JU has become much more conscious about generating money in the last few years.
Delete9 if you include Tel Aviv, although that's because of the war.
Deleteexpansion and contraction :)
Delete:(
ReplyDeleteNot surprised
ReplyDeleteHappening across the board with many airlines.
ReplyDeleteHope all these routes come back for summer.
ReplyDeleteThey will
DeleteAir Serbia was too optimistic or wrong planning, and now they have to cancel. For sure that is not good for passengers and image of company and country.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteHow is it bad for the country especially since Wizz Air will keep on flying to HAM? I wouldn't be surprised if both routes and especially HAJ are not brought back in summer.
DeleteI fear there is too much capacity to Germany from BEG. Air Serbia can keep on growing only if they keep on adding more transfers or if BEG starts attracting more passengers from the wider catchment area.
Dude, are you being a bit dramatic? I mean to be honest, I can't even point these two cities on the map and have zero interest in visiting them.
Delete9:57,
Deletemaybe not important to you personally, but it is to gastarbeiters and immigrants who go back home visit their families.
"and have zero interest in visiting them"
DeleteHamburg is one of the most beautiful cities in Northern Europe. Not sure why you'd flaunt your ignorance like that.
Wizz is almost always completely booked on HAM flights. ASL has very bad schedule in comparison and its often not convenient despite okay-ish pricing
DeleteAnon 10:22 +1000 Absolutely agree
Greetings from Hamburg
Hanover is important for business and trade too, it's not just about diaspora.
Delete@09:57 You are proving the point that ignorance is bliss. Hamburg is the SECOND BIGGEST city in Germany!!
DeleteYup. Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany, larger than Warsaw, Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Budapest, Prague, Milan, Barcelona...etc. It's gorgeous, one of the cities called the Venice of the North - probably the most deserving of that moniker.
DeleteIt's also the fourth busiest cargo port in Europe.
If every second flight to / from Russia is delayed by 1.5-2 hrs fro no major reason, less and less Russians will chose to travel through Belgrade. Also the ticket price difference if comparing TK and JU for travel in April is about 3-400E in favor of TK so that plays a very important role.
ReplyDeleteRussia accounts for less than 3% of Air Serbia's total ops.
DeleteBased on table sent out a few days ago on this site Russia market passengers account for 8.3% (not3%) of total pax number and that number is by far higher when you account that a lot of Russia passengers flew in transit through Belgrade. Second, Russia fares are probably the most profitable ones in the entire network. And even if you were correct with 3% that absolutely doesn't justify constant delays and inconveniences to passengers.
DeleteThe table was about CAPACITY, not passengers handled.
DeleteThen you can take 80% average as most flights are full so higher than 3%
Delete8% of capacity means roughly 8% of passengers, unless you have a reason to believe that LF on the flights to/from Russia is below average of JU.
DeleteIf 50% of them are transfers, and my bet is it is more than 50%, that means 12% of the JU passengers comes from the Russian market. Ie. every eight passenger.
On top of that, market conditions allow to squeeze these passengers on fares, so these are most money making passengers for the airline.
Hamburg if is a beautiful city. Would recommend it for a city break destination for those who haven't visited.
ReplyDeleteWho cares about such routes. As if German tourists won't be coming over anymore. AirSerbia needs more intercontinental flights. Asia, Africa, Latin America why not.
ReplyDeleteYes, because there is huge demand for Latin America from Serbia and vice versa.
Delete@ 10:09 The way hub & spoke model works is that an airline brings transfer passengers from different destinations, so they can fill in flights to other destinations, especially long haul. If you want to fill in twice a week a wide-body to Buenos Aires, you need to bring a few passengers from Cluj-Napoca, a few from Krakow, a few from Hamburg etc. That's why if you dream about Latin America, you should care about Hamburg and Hanover.
DeleteIf anything is bad for business (and for life in my opinion) that's "who cares" attitude.
Delete@10:21 Talk about grand delusions.
DeleteHow many passengers are there each day in BEG to Tokyo or Buenos Aires? How many passengers are there in Tokyo or Buenos Aires to go to BEG? More than 10?
DeleteAir Serbia seems to aim to be an airline based on hub & spoke model. It does not matter that much how many passengers from Buenos want to fly to BEG as long as there are 250 passengers willing to use BEG as their transfer airport.
DeleteBut they need to have other destinations to transfer to. That's why places like Hamburg are important and that's why increases on frequencies are important.
No. It does matter whether there are p2p passengers willing to pay more for their direct flight. 100% of transfers does not make sense businesswise, unless you have an extremely good geographical location.
DeleteWhat would make a passenger from HAN or HAJ go via BEG to Beunos or Tokyo? Only low price. Unless you have a certain portion of your passengers paying good money the route is not sustainable. For this you need p2p.
Well, recently there's been a significant influx of immigrants from Latin America to Croatia. Particularly the diaspora who's fleeing Argentina and its crumbling economy. There are about 400k Croats just in Argentina and another 200 - 250k in Chile. With Uruguay and mostly southern Brazil, altogether some 700k Croats live in that part of South America. Some arrive for EU citizenship and some do stay. At any rate, since OU isn't particularly interested in them, Air Serbia should come in. So yeah, why not South America?
DeleteAlso JU has already increased Spain and if I'm not mistaken has established flights to Lisbon - their usual entry points to EU, with Amsterdam and Paris being popular too.
Likewise Croatia doesn't care about the even larger diaspora in North America either.
Granted, most of them are just visiting, not moving back to the old country, but still...Air Serbia's JFK flights are doing great, ORD had a good start and I'm sure Toronto would work as well. Greater Toronto is probably where more than half of the Croatian diaspora lives - that's almost 100k people just from Croatia in Toronto. Not to mention lots of Serbs and others from ex yu.
No wonder JU is increasing ZAG.
Most immigrants to Latin America have no link with Europe any more. Their ancestors left to Brasil or Argentina +100 years ago, when those were still wealthy countries, and typically they do not know anybody in Europe now.
DeleteMoreover they have no money and if they had they have more pressing needs than spending them on intercontinental flights to Europe to visit the country of their ancestors.
If it would be otherwise, they would most certainly be visiting by now, not waiting for direct flights, but flying via Germany or Spain, but they don't...
So it is all pure nonsense.
I am not commenting on other points as that would make a discussion go even more OT.
@17.39
DeleteIt is not pure nonsense. Of course not all of those hundreds of thousands are still tied to Croatia, of course they are not all rich, but calling @Michael post nonsense is nonsense. Maybe you don't know current president of Chile is of croatian origin. Maybe you don't know the richest man in Chile, Andronik Luksic (passed away recently) was Croatian, and doing successful hotel business in Croatia. The owner of the airline operating flights to Antarctica from Punta Arenas is Croatian. And it's not the case only with Chile but with Brazil and Argentina as well. Thousands, but literally thousands of croatian origin are returning from Latin America to Croatia, after EU adhesion, and especially during the last 3-4 years. Before speaking of pure nonsense, maybe you should check for the numbers of tourists from South America, non-croatian, visiting every year. If we add to that surrounding countries, ex-yu, Hungary with significant diaspora in South A,. Italy, here we have the base for few weekly scheduled services. Of course, if OU were interested in anything else except feeding LH. Also, do you think that 3 Iberia daily flights from Madrid to diferrent croatian airports are for spanish tourists only? No, sir, one good part are SA transfers. And SA is just a fraction of North America. That's why current OU results equal national treason.
Maybe you don't know, but three weekly longhaul flights means 42000 tickets on sale yearly one way. Assuming 40% would be O&D passengers, it means that you need to sell at good prices 16800 of those tickets. Can you name ONE AIRPORT in South America when you can sell that number of expensive (because direct) tickets to ZAG (or to Croatia in general)? South America is a huge continent, we will not bus to one airport all passengers from all of South America. For now you named a couple of persons of Croatian descent, but not all of them are actually travelling to Croatia yearly and even if, it would be too few to fill any plane, except for a private jet.
DeleteThe remaining 60% of the seats we will try to fill with transfers (if a wide enough network were build), but Croatia does not have the best location in Europe for flights to South America.
Get realistic and stop nonsense.
Have you ever heard of thing called code-share?
DeleteDid you check the number of tourists from S. A. to Croatia?
Do you know how many DAILY flights Italy had to S. A. (next to HR, speaking of best location)?
The only problem in Croatia is flag carrier which is shame and disaster, and the only person talking nonsense is you, and here I end this conversation.
These routes are only twice a week. And who wants to visit them in the middle of winter anyway?
ReplyDeleteThats true. Also big flooding in the area decreased demand.
DeleteWeird you think it can't be someone from Hanover or Hamburg would visit Belgrade (and beyond) but exclusivelly it has to be one-directional Belgrade to Germany... Why?
DeleteBoth the Belgrade and Serbian Tourism Organization do an extremely lousy job at promoting Serbia anywhere. Belgrade dosen't even have a tourist pass for museums, public transport etc. Air Serbia and Wizz Air have done more for Serbian tourism than either of the two organizations.
DeleteKRK must be doing well if it is not suspended.
ReplyDeleteActually to KRK there is a lot of P2P demand particularly in winter months. Also, there have been no reductions in frequencies to KRK this winter so I would guess it does well.
ReplyDeleteLow capacity. Two/three small aircraft per week should be always possible to fill between major cities like BEG and KRK/HAN/HAJ.
ReplyDelete“We are very pleased with how Belgrade - Krakow - Belgrade flights are performing. We have had a very high load factor on the route from the beginning. Half of the passengers are transit travellers who fly via Belgrade to Croatia, Greece and the United States. The route has a very high potential to be operated daily from the new year”.
ReplyDeleteI am not interested in corporate talk. My point is 2/3 weekly to KRK/HAN/HAJ is 140/210 seats per week one way on atr72. I cannot imagine that it is not possible to find per week 140/210 peoply traveling between the capital of Serbia and the second city of Poland (KRK) / the second city of Germany (HAM).
ReplyDelete^ What are you talking about. KRK is operating normally. It is not suspended or its frequnecies reduced. I don't know why you keep mentioning it.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised there is relatively high p2p demand on this route.
ReplyDeleteThere SHOULD BE some p2p on this route. After all we are talking about a route between capitol of Serbia and the second city of Poland. 140/210 passengers one way per week is everything that is needed. The same about HAM.
ReplyDeleteBut whether BEG-KRK actually sees enough p2p is just speculation. The route most probably gets subsidies for a newly opened route and if it were suspended for any part of the year, JU would the right to these subsidies. So it has to keep it open irrespective of passenger interest.
So you have already concluded based on absolutely no data that the route is unsuccessful and is being kept because of incentives (fyi incentives is not the same as subsidies)
ReplyDeleteI made no conclusions, because there are no data, and in particular no conclusions may be made based on lack of flights reductions BEG-KRK.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I wrote: "But whether BEG-KRK actually sees enough p2p is just speculation."
German market is more than covered in almost entire Balkans. No need to focus on Germany, JU needs Spain and Portugal.
ReplyDeleteGermany is Serbia's biggest trading partner, biggest individual investor in Serbia and has one of the biggest Serbian diasporas in Europe. So yes, there is a reason why it is one of Air Serbia's biggest markets.
DeleteWinter reduction/suspension of some EuroMed services is normal. Next months and a half will have very low demand.
ReplyDeleteLong haul services are surprisingly not being suspended. Chicago ORD is not being served during this period in a market of hundreds of millions in Mediterranean and South/East Europe except for IST and BEG. Milan service is cargo-only, no passengers. When countries with large diaspora and tourist/economy links like Italy and Greece have no ORD service at all during this period, what kind of yield can Air Serbia expect in the next two months?
https://postimg.cc/dDWq46K0
BEG - 480 000 pax in January 2024?
ReplyDeleteMore like between 620,000-650,000
Delete480,000 lol right. Yes they will have just 40,000 more passengers than in 2023 with 30% more capacity than in 2023. Some people here...
Delete500 000 pax is 12% growth, it would be nice to see 650 000 pax, however it would be 45% growth for BEG in January which is impossible.
DeleteJU seems to have always struggled in Hamburg outside of summer. Perhaps going forward they will have to dedicate more time and energy in promoting their services on the routes they had to suspend this winter.
ReplyDeleteIt comes down to the sales and marketing team which are in deep sleep as usual. But that's what happens when Suzy Vasiljevic orders her girl pal to be appointed cxas the marketing director.
Delete