Airports across the former Yugoslavia are expected to continue feeling the impact of the war in the Middle East, with a number of airlines revising or cancelling services across the region.
Royal Jordanian Airlines is delaying the launch of its new service between Amman and Belgrade. Initially scheduled to commence on April 1, the route will now begin on April 25. Although Jordan’s airspace has reopened following several brief closures, security concerns persist. Over the past week, Iran has launched 85 missiles and drones toward Jordan. Jordanian air defences intercepted 79 of them, while five drones and one missile fell within the country’s territory. Civil defence teams and police responded to 93 reports of falling debris. Royal Jordanian has primarily targeted the new Belgrade service at leisure travellers from Serbia and is cooperating with several tour operators in the country to stimulate demand on the route.
Qatar Airways has released its revised flight schedule through March 28, with the airline not planning to operate services to either Belgrade or Zagreb during this period. Bucharest will remain the only destination in the wider region to be served. Meanwhile, a Qatar Airways Airbus A320, registered A7-AHT, remains grounded in Belgrade. The aircraft arrived on February 28, when the conflict in the Middle East escalated, and has remained at the airport since. The airline had planned to operate five weekly flights to the Serbian capital and a daily service to Zagreb throughout March.
Flydubai continues to maintain scheduled services to Belgrade, Ljubljana, Sarajevo and Zagreb, although the carrier has significantly reduced its operations. Prior to the conflict, Flydubai had planned to operate 35 weekly flights to the region in March, including seventeen weekly rotations to Belgrade, daily services to Ljubljana and Zagreb, and four weekly flights to Sarajevo. The schedule has now been scaled back to daily operations to Belgrade, four weekly to Zagreb, three weekly to Sarajevo and two weekly services to Ljubljana. On outbound flights from the former Yugoslav capitals, the airline is said to be carrying only a handful of passengers per flight.
Operations between Israel and markets in the former Yugoslavia remain suspended. Due to guidelines issued by security authorities and operational restrictions currently in place at Tel Aviv Airport, the El Al Group, which includes its leisure brand Sun d’Or, is currently operating at only 20% of its usual flight capacity. As a result, around 80% of air operations remain inactive. Consequently, Sun d’Or’s two weekly flights to Belgrade and Podgorica are presently suspended. However, the airline’s planned new services to Zagreb and Dubrovnik, which are scheduled to launch in late May, remain in the timetable for the time being.
The duration of the ongoing conflict and its impact on the Gulf states remain uncertain. Even if the war were to end by the close of the month, its broader effect on travel trends this summer is still unclear. Air Serbia’s CEO, Jiri Marek, said, “We are currently seeing a certain spike in bookings. Every crisis brings opportunities, and it depends on how quickly you react. The key question is whether this is a short-term surge in demand or a longer-term shift. At the moment, no one has a clear position or vision”.
How the war will impact travel demand from the Middle East this upcoming summer also remains uncertain. This could have a particular effect on Sarajevo Airport, which during the summer months is the region’s best-connected airport to the Middle East and relies on a significant number of flights from the region. While services from Saudi Arabia, a key market for Bosnia and Herzegovina, remain unaffected for the time being, other markets such as Kuwait remain closed. During the summer season, the airport normally handles up to fifteen weekly flights from the Gulf state alone.
It’s going to be interesting how things will develop. I think Flydubai will be impacted the most. A lot of their passengers are point to point. Many expats won’t return to Dubai after this is over and tourists will likely return in fewer numbers at least over the next 9 months.
ReplyDeleteI think Qatar will be less impacted because 98% of their passengers from/to ex-Yu are transfers so these people, many of them already with bookings for this summer will probably fly. The question is will QR, due to drop in demand across its network, be able to keep up the schedule and keep generating transfer passengers.
Gulf airlines will definitely dump prices in the aftermath of this to attract passengers. I remember that QR did something similar during the blockade of Doha. Fares were dirt cheap for 2-3 years.
DeleteThey can dump prices as much they want, after I saw what costs my friends stuck in Maldives occured, I aint flying over Middle East anytime soon.
DeleteI looked at flightradar last night and there were hundreds of Emirates flights operating which was a surprise. I think they are up to 70% of pre war schedule. The only issue is A380s to Dubai coming in with 20 passengers.
ReplyDeleteAt around 5AM Dubai time this morning over 40 planes were in holding position because they could not land in Dubai as a fuel depot at the airport was hist by a drone. The situation is far from normal. A lot of EK flights cancelled today.
DeleteYes quite a few flights were diverted.
DeleteEK is forcing its aircrews to take tremendous risk.
DeleteThe amount of attacks on the UAE has actually gone down significantly
DeleteGraph: https://ibb.co/23bGnwwQ
I think Flydubai will suspend Ljubljana from next week unfortunately ☹
ReplyDeleteWhy would you think that?
DeleteThey can't guarantee hot meals for all the tourists :)
DeleteGood question is whether local population in Gulf will want to travel this summer, under the assumption the war ends by then. Could be a big impact on Sarajevo.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this will encourage the airport to develop more year round European connectivity as a balance.
DeleteThe other night there were 25 passengers of Flydubai BEG-DXB.
ReplyDeleteExpected. Nobody wants to travel to Dubai right now.
DeleteGosh, that's brutal go down from three daily flights on certain days. This might impact overall passenger numbers in BEG
DeleteEvery airport having link with ME/Dubai will be affected the same way.
Delete@09:59 in the grand picture of death and deatruction passenger numbers dont mean anything
Delete10.53
DeleteWhat are you talking about? What death and destruction. There leader of the Free World" has undertaken legitimate action of liberation of the Evil country: the plan is to liberate them from their oil, gold, minerals...Few hundreds thousands of casualties and few hundred billions in damage is nothing. They will get the job of building afterwards anyhow
Is anyone actually on board in the legs from our region to the Middle East? Or just people leaving the UAE to come to Europe?
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be some people. There are people who live there who want to go back and considering Emirates' network I believe there are still people transferring.
DeleteThat must be extremely costly for Flydubai. I wonder how long they can maintain that schedule if passenger numbers remain so low.
DeleteIf the conflict drags on, FZ will likely adjust summer schedules.
DeleteThe big question is what the price of fuel will have on the entire industry.
ReplyDeleteFuel prices were still higher 3 years ago than they are today.
DeleteThe price of fuel historically has small influence on Middle East airlines.
DeleteThe higher the price of oil the more money Middle Eastern countries make as they are the ones countries are buying their oil from.
DeletePity about RJ. Hope it still goes ahead eventually but considering it's mostly for tourists it will be a hard sell for this summer.
ReplyDeleteunderstandable given the circumstances.
DeleteRoyal Jordanian entering the Belgrade market would add useful diversity to the airport’s airline portfolio. Hopefully the launch goes ahead later in April.
DeleteMost of passengers on RJ are tourist booking with agencies.
DeleteBelgrade has simply no luck with AMM
Delete+1
DeleteMiddle east generally
DeleteSarajevo could be hit hardest if Middle Eastern demand drops.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that Saudi flights remain unaffected is good news for Sarajevo at least. Those routes have been the backbone of its summer Middle East network.
DeleteIf the conflict de-escalates quickly, summer demand could actually rebound strongly because people postpone travel rather than cancel it entirely.
DeleteDoubt it will de escalate quickly
DeleteThis will affect summer charter traffic as well. Particularly to Egypt and Turkey.
ReplyDeleteTrue dat!
DeleteAirlines may shift capacity to Western Europe
DeleteCroatia would benefit in such a scenario.
DeleteTIV too.
DeleteFrom Serbia the most attractive destination countries will be Spain and Greece.
DeleteThe Albanian Riviera would be a great choice too!
DeleteThanks, but no thanks
DeleteJU fly twice daily to Tirana which serves it well.
Delete@1115 and Brać!
DeleteLet’s hope the conflict doesn’t drag into summer.
ReplyDeleteWe can hope but things are getting worse...
DeleteEven if it would end soon, not too many people will go back to Middle East. That place will take a long time to regain trust for investors and workers
ReplyDeleteTrue. Passengers are very sensitive to security concerns. Even if flights operate normally, booking demand can disappear almost instantly.
DeleteThere will be good opportunities as what is now damaged will need to be rebuilt.
DeleteUnfortunate. The Middle East routes were one of the fastest growing segments for airports in the region.
ReplyDeleteThis situation also affects connecting passengers. Many travellers from the Balkans use Gulf hubs for onward flights to Asia and Australia.
ReplyDeleteAnd South Africa
DeleteI wonder if insurance companies are already influencing airline decisions behind the scenes.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Air Serbia will be replaced by other routes in Europe or America?
ReplyDeleteWhat?
DeleteAir Serbia does not have any routes to Middle East, so they have nothing to replace.
DeleteAir Serbia has plenty of charters scheduled for Antalya and Egypt.
DeleteHow is Antalya connected with this war? Egypt is also not connected.
DeleteThey are not connected but they are close to an active warzone. Demand for Egypt was lower from all of Europe last year due to Gaza war.
DeleteThere are rockets from Iran going into Turkey and intercepted by NATO antiaircraft systems.
Deletehttps://thearabweekly.com/erdogan-wants-keep-out-iran-wars-pit-fire-third-missile-intercepted#:~:text=NATO%20air%20defences%20shot%20down,while%20the%20second%20entered%20it.
Riyadh Air should have used the opportunity and finally launched flights. Could have benefited a lot considering the situation with other major Gulf competitors.
ReplyDeleteThe most overhyped and underdelivered launch of an airline in history.
DeleteI Think also the demand play some part for this . For example yesterday ATH had flights to the middle east region from El Al , Arkia , Israir , Air Haifa , Royal Jordanian , MEA , Emirates , Air Arabia .
ReplyDeleteYou should also know that there are thousands upon thousands of Israelis now living in Greece and that there are thousands of tourists too which got stuck in Greece. There is a reason why there are big property sale ads in Hebrew at Athens Airport.
DeleteUsually when there is a war and rockets flying around in the ME and non Israeli carriers stop flying to TLV most Israel bound traffic goes to ATH and LCA.
DeleteFrom these two airports Israeli owned airlines pick them up and bring them to TLV.
That is happening because they tend to own their aircraft instead of lease them and the government of Israel picks up the greatly increased insurance bill that these carriers have to pay when hostilities are going on in the region.
Those airlines are flying from ATH regurarly , so spare me please that all these flights just bring people to its hometown . Like it or not there is demand for ATH unlike the ex-yu region !
Delete^ you obviously don't follow aviation much. You are the greatest. Now move on.
DeleteI am Anon 10:20.
DeleteI simply mentioned what the situation is regarding travel to and from TLV when there is a conflict going on.
Nobody doubted the demand for flights to ATH from the Middle East. I' am just trying to explain how Israeli carriers and travelers deal with disruptions and cancelations of foreign airlines flying to TLV.
✌️
ATH can’t be compared to any airport in the region simply because whatever happens ATH will have its MENA network. Even Aegean now operates their flights to JED without any problem with RUH to be resumed in late March. TLV - ATH has become one of the busiest routes in Greece and that’s why so many Israeli airlines still fly. Emirates also operated a couple of A380 flights to ATH last week.
DeleteMany people very limited in their knowledge of how important both Cyprus and Greece are to Middle East travellers and that there will always be demand. Not worth explaining.
DeleteThe truth is that because of the Middle East closers JU might see a strong uptick on flights to/from Russia.
ReplyDeleteWe might even see A330 again.
How exactly?
DeleteBecause Middle East airlines carried passengers to Russia. Now those passengers may switch to JU, however it is unlikely and likely Turkish is going to profit the most.
Delete^ +1
DeleteIf JU had a network flying anywhere in Africa, Southeast Asia or India it could get a lot of Russian traffic that used to fly via the Gulf.
But as things stand now TK will be the main beneficiary.
They fly to CAN and PVG. Many traffic comes from there. Flights almost sold out.
DeleteTrue dat, if only they would increase frequencies they would get even more.
Delete@11.12
DeleteYes I'm sure it would be very profitable. Meanwhile the sainted Aegean has cancelled India plans and delayed XLR deliveries.
^ Who can blame them? The airspace closures make it even for XLRs difficult to fly to India from Europe.
DeleteNot to mention the ongoing conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan that further restricts the available airspace for flying to India.
@11:19
DeleteFares are currently sky high for people trying to go to and from Europe who were previously booked to travel with the ME3.
@11.27 I don't blame them at all. Just showing how ludicrous some suggestions are here that JU should now launch India.
Delete^ nobody serious really suggests that.
DeleteYes, you were right. Same for Abu Dhabi suggestions. You foresee all this on time. Pity you didn’t warn ME3 what will happen to them
DeleteWhat on earth are you talking about
DeleteSkopje through smart management has avoided any cancellations to the Middle East 😂
ReplyDeleteSo true!
DeleteSurely they can read the future these guys! 😂😂😂
Even more, Skopje got 4 flyDubai evacuation charter flights. So that's 4 four more than nothing. The Macedonian government also arranged the FlyNas evacuation flight from Riyadh to Pristina as Macedonia and Saudi Arabia haven't signed their aviation agreement yet so we couldn't land in Skopje...
DeleteThey have future reading dislocated department at Šuto Orizari 🤣
Delete