NEWS FLASH
easyJet will restore flights between Geneva and Skopje following a one-year hiatus. Services will resume on November 3 and run twice per week, on Mondays and Fridays. It will operate alongside services between Paris Orly and the Macedonian capital, which were launched by the budget carrier this April. easyJet halted operations between Geneva and Skopje in November 2024 following three years of service. Further flight details for the Geneva – Skopje route can be found here.
What was the point of stopping it for a year?
ReplyDeleteSubsidies.
Delete^ exactly. It's subsidies. To be eligible, route must not have been served for 1 year.
DeleteWhen they stop the route in that moment there were not any open tender , how did they know that tender would be open before they cut the route . They cut because of something else , send the airplane where he wil bring more money to them.
Delete^ of course they knew. You think they found out on the same day as you and me?
DeletePossibly that could be true I am not saying no ,maybe it is a business game to suck government funds...
DeleteWoo Hoo!
ReplyDeletethey should really try ZRH
ReplyDeleteThey don't have a base there. In BSL they do, but they dropped the ball by dragging their feet and W6 entered the market.. and the rest is history. They've lost to W6 in 95% cases they've competed so nothing's gonna happen there. They lost the plot overall and instead of merging with Wizz in the early days when they had a great complementary network they've arrived at the point of being an acquisition target for Wizz.
Delete@14.09 Easyjet won against Wizz in PRN on the Basel route
Delete@14:25 They finally learned their lesson and deployed serious capacity early enough. If W6 were to enter with a double daily they'd be ground to dust, like everywhere else. Luckily for them W6 are not exactly known for their bravery when it comes to the Balkans.
Deleteif somebody is brave in the ExYU than it is Wizz. Skopje would be stuck with <1m
Delete@14.44 Oh it's exactly SKP I have in mind when I say they're not brave. Negotiations went on since 2007 until in 2011 Gruyo agreed to take over the narrative seeing that TAV was just biding the time in order to bag the whole profit, which they eventually did. The rest is history. The network up until 5AC was in place since 2011 and it was just a matter of time of proving it. I could write a book about this, and I might actually one day do it.
DeleteA sham, just like the W6 BCN story. Goes to show what you can do on a thin market with limited competition and/or barriers to entry. At least there was some pressure to BCN from VY, GVA has 0 pressure due to the necessity for a Swiss / Macedonian AOC.
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify, the (obvious) point is milking the subsidies. They're nearly immaterial in the grand scheme of things and this move makes sense for routes that are only (or nearly) operationally and not fully profitable.. so makes sense to reallocate the capacity elsewhere until there's some cash to be gained. Again, pretty immaterial, but at the industries' existing margins they'll take anything they can.
DeleteGVA was under pressure with Wizz launching Lyon
Delete@14.29 Yeah nah. Macedonians and Albanians in the region are mostly from Vaud west and northward, and that's much better connected to BSL/MLH than LYS. It was simply a subsidy play, nothing more to see here.
DeleteOhrid - Basel the same
DeleteNice news! Great job Easy Jet & Skopje!
ReplyDeleteHopefully for 3th route to see from Skopje with them.
DeleteLYS will probably go down to 2 weekly
ReplyDeleteWhy u think that ?
DeleteWell, LYS and GVA target the same area. Prices are going to drop for the beginning.
DeleteIt is good to have competition and a choice as an option. The price would probably go down which is ok. But if the LYS is doing good (which we dont know it is still early stage) doesnt mean that will go down because og GVA return. Plus W6 knows when they apply for LYS that also Easyjet applies for GVA return , so in this business there is no surprise , it is all about clever tactic and decisions and predictions of course.
Deleteand suddenly we have two easy routes 😊
ReplyDeletedont want to sound ungrateful for what we have but my dream would be London Gatwick
Fair enough, but what exactly would be the added value from LGW in comparison to LTN for this specific market? Visas seriously limit connecting options. In my eyes it'd mainly offer more convenience for the southern catchment, otherwise connectivity to Central London is not an order of magnitude different.
Deletetalking only from a pax perspective: better airport, LTN departure/arrival times at the moment are everything but convenient
DeleteThanks. I'd buy the convenience argument being worth the risk for launching it if SKP-LON were at least a daily A320 market year round. It just isn't.
DeleteMacedonia-England works on scraping visas for Macedonians. It is possiblr we see that decision very soon this year. That would be amazing for us Macedonians
DeleteSo far SKP and OHD get al the routes from the subsided tender , the only one currently missing is Dubai , finger crossed they launch it too!!
ReplyDeleteThey should launch Skopje-Lanzarote next. Demand is crazy
ReplyDeleteThey could launch something , I feel we will see them with 3th route from SKP in future.
DeleteDemand from Skopje to Lanzarote? 😂😂😂
DeleteGreat news!! Looking forward to flying with them again!
ReplyDelete