Sarajevo Airport anticipates its busiest summer season on record, with twelve new routes announced and over 1.6 million seats on sale between March 31 and October 26. This summer, Ryanair makes its debut at the airport with six destinations, while Air Arabia and Aegean Airlines will restore their nonstop Sharjah and Athens flights after several years. Turkish carrier SunExpress, which enters Bosnia and Herzegovina’s market today with flights from Antalya, will commence operations from Izmir during the summer. Pegasus Airlines will grow its presence in Sarajevo with new flights from Antalya, while Saudi Arabia’s Flyadeal and SAS Scandinavian Airlines will launch seasonal services from Jeddah and Copenhagen. The majority of the new routes will be subsidised by the Tourism Association of the Sarajevo Canton.
New routes from Sarajevo, summer 2024
| Destination | Airline | Launch date |
|---|---|---|
| Charleroi | Ryanair | 31.03.2024 |
| Gothenburg | Ryanair | 31.03.2024 |
| Bergamo | Ryanair | 31.03.2024 |
| Memmingen | Ryanair | 01.04.2024 |
| London Stansted | Ryanair | 02.04.2024 |
| Izmir | SunExpress | 21.04.2024 |
| Athens | Aegean Airlines | 01.06.2024 |
| Antalya | Pegasus Airlines | 03.06.2024 |
| Jeddah | Flyadeal | 04.06.2024 |
| Sharjah | Air Arabia | 10.06.2024 |
| Copenhagen | SAS | 03.07.2024 |
| Thessaloniki | Ryanair | 03.07.2024 |
This summer, Sarajevo Airport has a total of 1.636.428 seats on scheduled inbound and outbound flights combined. It represents a 30.3% increase on last summer, and a 14.3% improvement on 2022, which was its busiest summer to date, when Wizz Air maintained a base in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital. During the summer, Turkish Airlines will be the largest carrier with just over 200.000 seats, followed by its local rival Pegasus Airlines and then Austrian Airlines. New entrant Ryanair will be the sixth-largest airline based on available capacity with 96.178 seats, behind Wizz Air Abu Dhabi and Flydubai.
Out of all the airlines launching new routes to Sarajevo this year, Ryanair has the biggest aspirations for its future development in the city, aiming to carry 200.000 passengers during its first year of operations alone. “Ryanair is the only airline that can deliver rapid growth in Bosnia and Herzegovina - a stark contrast to competitor airlines who continue to cancel routes and reduce capacity”. Ryanair’s Chief Commercial Officer, Jason McGuinness, said recently. He added, “I think Sarajevo always presented a void in our network and we have always had the desire to fly out of Sarajevo, but the costs were too high. We have no interest in short-term agreements and deals. These new routes are just the beginning. During my discussions with the airport’s management and government ministers I said that Ryanair is here to grow. We want to expand in Sarajevo. Initially, we will not have a base in Sarajevo. When we establish a base, then we will directly employ technicians, pilots, and cabin crew. We are not at that stage yet, but we are working on it".
Based on indirect passenger flow, the busiest unserved destinations out of Sarajevo, once the upcoming new routes are excluded, are Ankara, Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels.
Impressive!
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be a big year for SJJ!
DeleteWell done SJJ
ReplyDeleteI expect there to be between 1.7 and 2 million passengers in 2024
DeleteFlights to Amsterdam are really needed. Hoping Transavia will come eventually.
ReplyDeleteWhat about KLM?
DeleteTransavia and KLM have a codeshare agreement, so ultimately, both work
DeleteYou may find Ryanair cuts some routes due to delays in the delivery of new Aircraft.
ReplyDeleteThey won't cut routes they are paid to fly. And there are just 3 weeks until they launch. If they were to cut them they would have done it by now.
DeleteRyanair is only cutting flights on routes with more than daily frequency.
DeleteSubsidies will pay off
ReplyDeleteSurprised no one has started Ankara yet.
ReplyDeletePerfect route for Ajet.
DeleteAre there any restrictions on the number of flights allowed between Turkey and Bosnia?
Delete^Nope
DeleteI woder if Wizz Air will start the route from/to Rome that they got subsidies for. Seems like the aircraft issues are delaying its launch.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, I think WIZZAIR will announce the route to FCO, not before the next Winter 25. Or even Summer 25. As soon as it has solved the problems with the P&W engines, returning to have all its 50 planes back, now down for maintenance
DeleteAnd then they will announce new routes from SKP and BEG and 7th and 5th plane at each base and after the new year holidays smth will happen again, as usual since 2020.
DeleteStill a lot of key European cities missing.
ReplyDeleteNice to see SAS. I think they had flights to Sarajevo years ago?
ReplyDeleteYes, I think through Snowflake subsidiary
DeleteThat Snowflake adventure was very short lived. I think the subsidiary lasted a year.
Deleteanyone know how much are the subsidiez and how long they run for?
ReplyDeleteHoping for an FR base soon!
ReplyDelete0 chance for that.
DeleteWhy?
Delete10:38 Can you explain why?
DeleteThis place, despite being an aviation forum, is about as pessimistic as it gets when it comes to aviation
DeleteThis article just reminded me that Wizz Air used to have a base in SJJ. Wild how quickly that ended. Happy numbers these year are above that.
ReplyDeleteHow many flights will Wizz Abu Dhabi have if they are fourth largest airline this summer? :O
ReplyDeleteDaily all summer with A321neo which has 239 seats! That's almost the capacity of JU's A330-200 for example.
DeleteI've done this flight out of BEG and never again. It's one thing flying Wizz for 2 hours. It's another to sit in their cabin for almost 6.
DeleteI agree but if i fly longer with them i would buy extra legroom seat and thats it.
DeleteWould we have so many new routes without the subsidies?
ReplyDeleteNo to Europe maybe only these to Gulf countries
DeleteVery nice Sarajevo 👌 Bravo guys from SJJ!
ReplyDeleteStill no Berlin, no Paris, no Madrid or Barcelona :-(
ReplyDeleteNo passengers. For this we have TK, PC, JU, OU, OS, LH...
DeleteTK to CDG and BCN? Are you for real?
DeleteHe mentioned every airline that offers connecting flights. Ofc that JU and OU are the perfect choise for Western destinations.
DeleteYes, why not? Turkish Airlines is the best way to Europe and the world? 5+ flights per day in every 3-4 hours from Istanbul to the largest and main hubs and airports in Europe and all other parts of the world. Daily flights to Madrid, Barcelona and Paris in every 4 hours. Why not? Other option is Air Serbia and LH Group.
DeletePegasus Airlines also offers good flights via Sabiha Gökcen in good low fares but their focus is on MEA&CIS markets, also most of pax in SJJ are to Middle East, most of them tourist from these countries, also have turkish tourists.
DeleteIMO best transfer points to Barcelona are Istanbul, Virnna and now last years Belgrade, Zagreb not.
DeleteThat's right ok. Well, as a whole, Sarajevo is very well connected to the main centers in Europe, as I mentioned above. Frankfurt, Vienna, Istanbul, Belgrade (although small this is a hub who disagrees he is not right), Zagreb is also small but always OU was number 1 in transfer traffic. For example I have flown OU to CPH. A year ago I traveled with JU from Sarajevo via Belgrade to Italy, again there were many transfers on the plane.
DeleteVIE is better close to Sarajevo from Istanbul. However, I agree that there are many people who travel through Istanbul to the west. It's a bit weird to go east to travel west but... I flew for example to OTP via IST and it was relatively cheap, quite a few people tell me they see pretty decent fares to US on TK sites compared to LH or B.A.
DeleteFor us from the Balkans, I think IST is the best choice for flights to USA or Canada, soon to many people's favorite ex-yu Australia.
DeleteDefinitely a must see BA with more destinations in the Balkans. I want them back in Sarajevo, it's notimpossible, even more tourists are coming from Britain!
DeleteIstanbul is the best point for transfers that's it, also Belgrade and Zagreb.
DeleteSo happy for the good news from SJJ this year!
ReplyDeleteHope Aegean upgrades Athens to year round !!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWhat about Norwegian?
ReplyDeleteOslo and Stockholm are year-round from next autumn.
DeleteWell done Sarajevo! I flew from there few days ago, and they did an amazing job with the new terminal!
ReplyDeleteYeah agree the lounge is a massive upgrade and more spacious
DeleteIf there are so many passengers how come JU does not have more than 1 ATR per day? Seems like they could be getting a bigger slice of the SJJ pie.
ReplyDeleteI agree flew SJJ a few times recently. I know some days they use the airbus but I think if they always used the bigger plane definitely scope for more transfer passengers
DeleteDirect line for Paris is needed, better than Greece for exemple.
ReplyDeleteActually, the price for Paris is so expansive, bosnians can’t visit Paris… its not great for Sarajevo, 3 lines for Turkiye, 0 for France.
For information, RyanAir are based on BVA Airport, and Sarajevo… So, why not ?