I think there is a potential for more routes to Spain in general from Ljubljana.

And more are to come

Indeed

15 September - Belgrade - Tenerife
30 September - Belgrade - Seville
30 October - Tenerife - Ljubljana

Im booked on the 2nd Tenerfie - Belgrade flight so i'll make a trip report. Where i live (uk) almost every airport is connected to Tenerife and its considered a really 'basic' destination. But im so glad to see options for people from the Balkans to get there directly. Lookong forward to the flight.

Happy to finally see TFS, actually any route to the Canaries, even seasonal ones. :)

Do you usually connect to get there? Its a pain in the ass yes.

Isn't Tenerife closer to the UK than it is to our region? Also the market from the UK is much larger because of atrocious weather.

@10:41 look at a map :)

its a german-UK market

@10:41 Parts of the UK are closer indeed - still a long flight. 'Atrocious weather' well that relative - hasn't been this year, its been atrociously hot. Nice to see Belgrade connected with Tenerife.

^ The canary islands are generally a northern European/French/Spanish dominated market. Although many Poles visit in winter. It will offer a lovely escape from the smoggy winters of the Belgrade and is a fun place to relax during the depths of winter.

Until the war in the Middle East, Egypt was the destination Serbs chose as the getaway destination from the Serbian winter.

We live in the US and enjoy Spain more than visiting during the cooler months like October/November. Very nice climate and great culture & food

It would be great but with Wizz Air sticking around I don't see them doing it. I hope Vueling resumes BCN-BEG.

Looks like IAG companies are ignoring BEG.

What can they do really? BA tried and failed. Aer Lingus has no reason to launch BEG and Iberia missed its chance.

If Iberia does launch BEG from MAD, I fear JU will be the weakest link there. Iberia has a massive market to rely upon, Wizz Air has low costs etc.

Seems more like they avoid competition battle

@09:11 competition battle? With what? They look at markets and slots and the kinds of profit they could make and dont regard it as worth it. Maybe one day that will change.

^ It doesn't really work that way with route planners. You are romanticising the role. The airport plays a huge part in attracting airlines. Their commercial teams, incentives all play a role in basically marketing a route to route planners and unfortunately BEG does a very poor job at that. If you think route planners are some sort of wizards, I can tell you most can't even name most countries in Europe.

^ can you now.

I wrote the comment above and I just wanted to add a first hand example. A certain Spanish airline approached BEG some time ago and the BEG team didn't even have basic statistics to provide this airline. They were clueless. So the airport fails to do a lot of homework and present itself to airlines properly.

Iberia dont even fly to Bucharet with regularity. I dont see Belgrade as being particularly their cup of tea.

For Iberia and Spain in general the former Yugoslavia is a secondary niche market but clearly has some room for future development. Airlines like Iberia and BA are in the market of shifting volume with an emphasis on premium passengers with onwards trans-Atlantic trips. I think the JU/Wizz duo for Belgrade works well but could see Ryanair linking Nis with Spain in the future.

but only middle of June-middle of Sept

Well the market is there as we can see from the article. IB can't argue against that, after all they fly to much smaller markets than BEG. This has to do with them being late to the party and now JU and W6 control the market.

With Wizz Air growing in Spain they will put even greater pressure on them. I expect a bunch of VLC to the ex-YU flights in the coming period starting with VLC-BEG.

or AGP

'IB can't argue against that' - They don't need to argue with it. They fly where they can make large profits and IAG make big big profits my friend.

Well they can make them because they have LHR which is printing money for them. Let's see how profitable Aer Lingus ends up being.

@11:08 What Air Lingus? They are not spanish airlines...IB group doesn't have much interest in Balkans, because spanish pax don't come here, they don't even know where Serbia is..A bit more Spaniards fly to Croatia but even that is quite insignificant number..They rely a lot on transfer pax from South America to Croatia, for BEG they don't even have that..IB cannot just rely on Serbians who travel to Spain, and transfer pax from BEG airport, since that already taken by Wizz and Air Serbia..No, IB won't fly to BEG even in future, and I don't see Vueling as well...Vueling already showed how stupid they were when they opened first BEG-BCN route...But then Air Serbia was also stupid by holding Spanish market closed for such a long time, but when they opened first route, they realized they had mistaken big time, so they went hard on it..and it paid off

Number of Spanish nationals entering Serbia during for tourism purposes during the first four months of the year increased 35% on the same period last year.

@14:13 I agree with your comment. However people have mentioned Aer Lingus because its part of IAG which is the parent company of both Iberia, British Airways, Vueling, Level and Aer Lingus. Not sure why anyone brought it up, but such is the nature of the beast.

@1418 ok, and what is the total number? 1350 in comparison to 1000 last year first six months? I'm joking, but figures are very poor for sure

21,564 in 2025.

@15:30, that's together with transiting, or the ones who had at least 1 night in Serbia? That number is low, but bigger then I thought..But, considering that almost 14 thousand Serbian citizens obtained Thailand visa only in embassy in Athens during 2025, and that we don't even have a direct flight to Thailand, and that Serbia and Spain are conected with around 40 flights weekly during summer, and 20-23 flights during winter season, with around 250 000 pax carried just in first half of the year, so in total is gonna be half a million per year, considering all these figures, numbrr of Spanish entering Serbia with all means of transport is really poor..

It is people who spent at least one night. And we get it. You have written 20 times how it's poor and terrible. Move on.

@15:51 ok. thanks for the info..that's important how numbers are calculated, 'cause ypu know how Malaysia is bragging all the time about highest number or tourists in SE Asia, some 35-40 million, whereas vast majority of it are transfer Air Asia pax, since LCC terminal on KLIA doesn't have transit option, you actually have to pass immigration and enter the country in order to catch another flight hehe..

15:47
Stop writing stupidness. I work in tourism and I can tell that Spaniards are delighted with Belgrade and huge number of them are arriving every day during whole year, staying 2-4 nights in average. Portugese also, but lower numbers. Spaniards are regular tourists in Belgrade, with larger numbers than Scandinavia, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France. Only Germans and Austrians. from western Europe are stronger.
But even thinking that with 30-35 average flights per week during the year between two markets doesn't carry one party tourists shows basic lack of aviation. Simply, traffic can not be that directional and have so many frequencies. Pure ignorance.

^ I believe British tourists visit Serbia in larger number than Spanish. But yes, the number is increasing and with tourism from all parts of western Europe there is great potential for future growth which is promising.

Wizz can’t add anything before adding 5th plane at BEG. And they won’t do it, because no more JU routes to copy

You do realize that Wizz Air is actually opening bases in Spain in the coming months?
By your logic JU copied Vueling when they launched BCN, they copied Spanair when they launched MAD, they copied TAP when they launched LIS and finally JU copied W6 when they launched ALC. So you repeating how W6 copies JU is a joke.

+1 well said.

Spanair didn't operate BEG for a very long time when Air Serbia started Madrid. TAP didn't fly to BEG for a long time when Air Serbia started Lisbon. Wizzair in general did try to emulate Air Serbia on some of their services to Spain and Portugal.

Airlines do not 'emulate' or 'copy', that is overly childish language is not fitting or serious debate.

@10:46
Wizz literally doesn't have any destination where it doesn't compete with JU. JU started Nice and Alicante after Wizz air, but all 23 other destinations are pure copy of successful JU routes. Even Grenoble is a copy of former Lyon, today Geneva

@19:26 Airlines literally copy/paste competition on some routes including scheduling flights as close as possible to competitor's. Are you unaware of examples such as JU starting GVA and U2 retaliating by launching CDG??? Airlines protect their turf exactly by copying others and betting on pushing them out. It is immature and ignorant not knowing this.

Reality of non gasto routes from SKP.

Yeah, A321neo is simply too big.

What is the LF in terms of percentage based on the numbers?

Read the article

Macedonia generated over 52,000 passengers with just Wizz Air. That's a very respectable market considering the country's size.

Tirana's MAD LF is even lower in winter schedule but yet they keep it

LF is only one indicator of a route's success but I agree the N.MK flight figures are healthy. Very useful connection from a regional perspective too as Skopje is a convenient gateway to a large area.

Have in mind a A320 would be too small for the demand

+1 Yeah. I think the Skopje - Spain market will mature and develop well. Spanish tourists are remarkably adventurous and they do love the Balkans. I think there is a healthy future for inbound growth too.

09:10 really ? Yes they will close the route now because of you. Handling 60k passengers on two routes that are served for only 1 year is amazing. There are way worst LF in the region but are still active. You will see those routes LF after 2 to 3 years of service. And for end this routes are served by A321 not smallerr A319 and 320

Not because of me, but due to poor LF. You aren't aware that LCC can not sustain LF lower than 90%? Then you have no basic knowledge about aviation.

OU has a lot more flights to Barcelona than Ryanair does to Girona.

Nice to see...

While it is on the other hand Ryanair operates almost all routes between Zagreb and Spain.

until FR launch BCN

Zagreb is mostly leisure outbound travel with the exception of Madrid which is more inbound. The coast is majority inbound tourism

Montenegro's numbers will look much stronger next year since both routes only launched this year. The first-half comparison doesn't tell the full story yet.

Depends on the route. Very few Spanish will visit North Macedonia with regularity (although they should!) and very few Dalmatians will travel to Bilbao..

ah the crystal ball again

Ah, the snide comment again.

+1

Load factors around 75-85% are healthy, but there is still room for growth before airlines start adding significant extra capacity.

Given the often wonky economics within the former Yugoslav states themselves, holidaying 'domestically' is often either more expensive or poorer value than flying to Spain. Added to that is the curiosity of a younger generation who enjoy Spain's open, liberal attitude - offering a refreshing change from the soiled and depressing atmosphere that lingers in many places at home.

lol surely not. you can go to Greece with your car and hundreds of thousands SRB,MKD stil do

I don't know about the rest of the region but I can speak of Serbia. Many Serbs go for holidays twice during the summer. The first time it's usually in June when they are using their old holiday and then in July or August for the new ones.

Some 20 years ago many would go to Montenegro and then Turkey, Tunisia or Egypt since we didn't need visas. Then they started combining one holiday in Montenegro and the other in Greece or Turkey. Then when visas were abolished and numbers to Greece exploded.

As the standard of living improved people started going to new places like Spain or Portugal. Personally I don't know many people who go to holidays in MNE unless it's between two destinations. Usually it's people who have property of friends there.

Statistics still say that many Serbs (and others in the region) take no real holiday at all. Levels of mobility are still quite low. Two holidays a year in certain wealthier circles, but large regions of the region remain very economically challenged. There is significant room for growth of the leisure market as standards of living increase.

I agree re: Montenegro. Fewer and fewer people select it for extended holidays because 1. Its so well 'known' 2. not very cheap for what one gets 3. Many people want to see new places.

Yes we are the poorest and ugliest. Why does somebody every day come and belittle and lecture people here about the region every single day?

Well you can't argue with facts. Many areas of Serbia are still relatively poor, especially southern regions. North and west do really well though. The situation is improving and you can see that from growing passenger numbers at all Serbian airports.

INI hinted at a new destination next summer and it's not JU. That's another sign of improved economic climate.

Btw just to add, there was a very interesting article the other day where they showed that actually the richest city in Serbia is... Kragujevac!
They looked at the average income and the cost of living. Btw people from KG can travel both from BEG and INI.

@11:05 discussing economic realities and future growth is not belittling, its examining issues and their solutions. The aviation sector in the region has a long way to go, and that is exciting and interesting for some of us who move beyond knee-jerk provincialism and the idea that people are out to 'get us' or demine us. To the future!

First four rows of table above speak louder than any comment.

Send them an email.

What?

Some people from the former Yugoslavia would, and do find Bilbao wonderful. However it is a limited number at present and I would assume those who visit it largely do so via Madrid by train. The flight to Split will largely cater to Spanish tourists visiting Dalmatia and perhaps even Hercegovina.
I adore Euskadi/País Vasco and solidly recommend it to anyone wanting a trip.

Basque Country is the Spanish region with the best food, lot of interesting sights and less tourists compared to Barcelona or Andalusia

Totally agreed. The whole northern coastline is divine!

Would be better if it was Ryanair on that route.

Why?

Because it would be nice to see FR expand more in the region.

No way. INI can not sustain flights to Paris, not to mention Barcelona or Madrid

Perhaps not now, however I think that very soon this will be the case, and Barcelona over Paris as a seasonal leisure destination makes perfect sense for Ryanair. Nis covers a relatively large catchment area we forget and the roads are better and better.

Like many people have said over and over, load factor does not equate to profitability. You can sell fares for 1 euro and fill an A380 between Sarajevo and Girona.

Alaska Airlines?

It looks that you haven't any idea about current situation, but that doesn't stop you writing your hopes and dreams. This summer JU have 6 pw, while W6 have 3! pw. They are killing it, definitely.

Kakve subvencije za Tursku?

The route only operated during July and August in 2025.

Thank you:)