NEWS FLASH
airBaltic has inaugurated its seasonal two weekly flights between Riga and Skopje, marking its entry onto the Macedonian market. The launch follows several meetings and workshops aimed at promoting the country in the Baltics for tourism purposes. airBaltic is also targeting transfer passengers from Macedonia to Northern Europe and has scheduled its flights to and from Skopje to connect onto its vast network. “We used to be really big in Russia and Ukraine. A fairly big portion of our traffic came from those countries. Approximately 10% -1 \5% of all traffic was from Russia and Ukraine, and we lost it overnight. We want to get these transfer flows back to Riga. Hopefully, by establishing all these new routes in the Balkans, we will be able to increase our transfer share at our Riga hub as well, because, obviously, frequencies and connectivity having reasonable transfer options are very, very important”, Mantas Vrubliauskas, airBaltic’s Vice President for Network Development, said. This year, airBaltic will operate around 130 routes, including seventeen new additions for the summer, among which are Ljubljana and Pristina, in addition to Skopje.
Great job SKP , now the airport have 59 routes which is great. I just hope for future to see CGD,Amsterdam,Munich,Madrid,Lisbon and of course Doha and Dubai !!
ReplyDeleteGreat job, airBaltic is a really good airline and I hope they will come to Zagreb and Sarajevo soon.
ReplyDeleteanyone know the loads? i really hope this works out, Macedonia deserves so much more...
ReplyDeletelove from Bosnia
It was 75% LF , and yes if they have succesfull summer probably AB will run this route all year round.
DeleteRIX-SKP 89 pax
DeleteSKP-RIX 39 pax
AB flying in SKP with A220-300, 140 pax capacity what means 240 sits both way. and 128 PAX in both way on this fly is average LF 53,3 %.
DeleteMy mistake, 280 PAX capacity and 128 pax in both way is 45,71 % LF.
DeleteNot much future in this. I expect them to cancel this very soon. The text shows that they are desperate to compensate for the lost Ukraine and Russia traffic, so they are trying everything. This one will be a miss.
ReplyDeleteThey are trying to enter this region market which is good , and it opens new options , and it will work for sure , they make their calculation before start this operations better then you and me or anyone else ;)
DeleteSo basically you are saying BT never terminated a route because they always did their calculations before?
DeleteI'm also sceptical about Riga. Warsaw failed in PRN and is barely alive in SKP.
ReplyDeleteRiga could work if there are enough curious travellers from both sides. As for transfer oportunities, Riga does not offer anything more which Istanbul, Vienna or Frankfurt isnt offering already.
Who tell you that Warsaw route is doing bad at SKP ? That route is doing very well and the planes are always with good load factor and that is why its succesfull all this time.Dont compare Pristina failure with SKP. Btw Riga will be good route for summer from SKP,its nice hub and easy connection to all baltic countries.
DeleteThey went from 6 or 7 pw to 9 flights pw this year so they are doing more than good on the WAW-SKP flights.
DeleteWAW-PRN-WAW route was purely for transfers onto LO flights to NYC. No O&D. Because of an increased demand to NYE from WAW and other destinations that LO flies to, and given that the LO capacity to NYC did not increase, there was simple no need any more to get those transfer pax from PRN. So the route to PRN was axed. The whole story. The moment LO increases capacity to NYC, it may come back.
Delete21:31 yes they went down for 1 flight that doesn't mean that the route is not good or will finish , it is because SKP is getting more and more new routes , more options and thats normal for any airline , but the route is far away from not good! Especially in summer we have alot of our diaspora from Usa and Canada coming back through WAW
Delete23.25 you misread my coment i meant to say that the route has more flights now than last year so it must have alot of people flying it
Delete@19:28 LOL! The route will be increased on 9 times per week this summer, which is almost 100% increase since they started operations with five weekly flights. RIX will do well as well, 75% LF on the first flight already! Dont spread nonsense over here
Delete@01:11
DeleteI'm simply sharing a fact.
Riga's chance to survive is purely relient on tourist demand. Riga does not offer 'transfers'. Who are you kidding. Transfer to where? Tallin? Vilnius?
Get yourself a map!
Just ignore him, he is always so aggressive when the topic is North Macedonia. Reality is completely different from the world he lives in.
DeleteHe lied about 75% LF as well lol
DeleteGuys, don't mix up BT plans with RIX plans. Yes, they are somewhat similar, but not identical. To my knowledge, RIX has ambition to become regional hub for Northern Europe - the Baltic states, Finland and (in the best case) Swedish North. They do not compete with CPH, ARN let alone FRA or AMS. RIX is happy to have 8 daily flights to HEL - 4 on AY and 4 on BT. Are BT happy with it? I don't think so - they would wish to have all flights for themselves.
Delete@01:47 You get a map and learn where Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo, Tampere, Turku, Gothenburg, Copenhagen are located. Air Baltic offers connections to all of them. I didnt lie about the 75% LF, i saw somebody write it in the comments and i believed it. Simple as that.
Delete@06:48 Yes, its obvious that its someone jelaous of everything m.
Perfect schedule time for Scandinavian transfer
ReplyDeleteit might work. many Macedonians work on cruise ships and north Europe has many embarking and disembarking ports. also air Baltic is trying the tourist pulse about Macedonia. nice weather, great food
ReplyDelete