Air Montenegro seems determined not to give Air Serbia any more ground on its most important routes.

It makes sense for Air Montenegro to defend Podgorica. If they can't compete strongly on Belgrade, where can they?

No, they can not. They don't have ATR, although acquiring of them should have been done long time ago.

Of course they can if they can fill the E95 which I am sure they can.

Of course they can not. They didn’t fill them with previous frequencies, not to mention growth

Huh? How do you know they didnt? So you are saying they are increasing BEG because they can't fill planes?

If Air Montenegro really enters the frequency battle, it means that it will soon be belly up.

Air Montenegro has no other choice but to fight for this market. Without BEG flights they are as good as D.E.A.D.

Exactly, but they do not have strength to beat Air Serbia on this market. It would be best for them to have codeshare with Air Serbia, as Montenegro Airlines had.

Exactly. They better keep their old frequencies and try to grow somewhere else. Where there are no JU or W6

They can't because only BEG has enough frequencies for them. All other destinations can sustain like 2 or 3 weekly flights.
Let's be honest, even their schedule until now was not enough. Both JU and 4O kept the number of frequencies low. You can't imagine how often the morning flight on both was sold out.

MARKET BETWEEN BEG AND TGD WAS UNDERSERVED.

It's the busiest in ex-Yu. But I'm sure IST-ATH is busier in the Balkans. Or IST and some domestic destination.

There are about 36 weekly flights from Istanbul (both airports i think) to Athens, so yes its a larger route, however the cities are many many times larger than Montenegro. Istanbul to domestic destinations wouldnt count as Balkan.

^ true. Not to mention the sizes of the two markets so these BEG-Montenegro flights are impressive in terms.of passenger volume.

Indeed. Strong family links and bad roads will do that. This will remain a very popular air corridoor for decades to come.

There are no domestic flights from IST to a Balkan Turkish airport, they are all in Asia Minor.

I guess it would be something like this:

IST-ATH
ATH-SKG
BEG-TGD or BEG-TIV

Even in eastern Europe and Balkans included it would be in top 10.

Beg tgd is busiest Balkan route by passenger wise, 300k+ and ath ist is up to 250k, by google. Admin, would you be kind and let us know for sure?

@16:05 IST-ATH has far more passengers. It also sees 777s with frequency by TK.

@09:32 Given the size of aircraft that operate between Athens and Tirana, this route will likely see slightly more passengers than Belgrade-Podgorica.

^ Yes it was slightly above. According to TIA statistics last year the route had 374,627 passengers. Then again a destination like Athens can't be compared to Podgorica.

Indeed. Comparisons are very often totally useless, yet the bread and butter of av geeks worldwide.

Is BEG-TGD larger than BEG-IST and BEG-ATH?

Yes

In passenger numbers BEG-IST is likely ahead of BEG-TGD due to aircraft size. But as people has stated, the comparisons are essentially without much meaning.

With this amount of capacity perhaps we will finally see more reasonable last-minute fares between Serbia and Montenegro but I'm not holding my breath.

Certain experts claim that it’s not possible to, because 80% of fare goes to different taxes

Yes, taxes are very high but they can do what LCCs do. Sell certain seats at a loss and then compensate with higher fares as loads improve.

There is plenty of business, family and property-related traffic throughout the year.

I wouldn't call it overcapacity yet. These routes have consistently demonstrated strong demand.

I think there are a lot of routes where it's like that from BEG.
Look at Athens this year. Aegean boosted flights and so did Air Serbia. Both did really well. Just goes to show that there is so much more room for growth.

This was the case with Barcelona until a few years ago.

Indeed. Significant boosts in capacity will be a major part of JU, and Belgrade's growth going forward which reflects increased mobility and financial means.

Not just JU but others as well.

Air Serbia has a huge advantage because Belgrade passengers can connect onwards throughout its network. Air Montenegro needs to find its own niche.

@09:09 to where?

09:14 He's obssessed with Podgorica connections. Same old in every article.

Oh, i didnt know. Transiting Podgorica sound both difficult (does it even have the ability to do this at any scale) and uncompetative.

Connectivity through Podgorica is exactly ehat we need😂😂😂

Oh how about through Tivat, mid afternoon connection in August anyone?

Air Montenegro is an P2P airline as it does not sell any connections.

Beware JFK-LAX, we are coming!

Air Serbia clearly doesn't want Air Montenegro benefiting too much from its own expansion. Every increase seems to be met with another increase.

Thats called business..good!

09:24
Nope.
This is clearly an attack on the JU. They are doing really well. Using the 4O as a tool. We can only guess by whom? LH? Wizz?

@18:17 what a load of nonsense.

+1

This is a strategy of attrition.

They will not fight on price, the price is agreed between the companies and has been almost the same for the last 15 years.

Except for that Air Montenegro does not exist for the last 15 years. Air Montenegro does not have any cooperation with Air Serbia and they are being eaten by JU this winter.

Duopoly or cartel at its best! No matter how many flights are on, price wont get down a bit! I would be so pleased that I am wrong!

Same with JU and OS to VIE or A3 and JU to ATH... don't get me started on fares to IST. It's a shame Sky Express is ignoring BEG and Pegasus can't grow.

For now, at least.

Until MNE become EU member….

You are crazy if you think MNE will be admitted to the EU any time soon.

Soon is relative in comparison to the others. So yes. Soon.

Agreed.

+1
Untill railroad and highway are nowhere near to compete flying travel time, they are safe.

Most of us alive now will not see the day when that railway could do that journey in the 3/4hours needed to be competitive. I think even with a fully constructed motorway the levels of air connectivity will increase for years to come in line with increased wages etc.

I don't think we are ever going to see high speed train to MNE simply because geography doesn't allow it. It would be too expensive to dig so many tunnels to keep tracks straight. You can't have sharp turns and a high speed train.

Plane will always be king.

10:21 The future of Belgrade - Bar should be regarded as something like the The Glacier Express, a tourist route of the highest quality but i cannot ever see either Serbia or Montenegro being rich enough to try to fully modernise the line to anything like the capacity required for modern mobilities. You are correct. Plane will remain king.

Plus on the way to MNE you have Valjevo and Uzice and I don't see a high speed train bypassing them. So when they do plan an upgrade it will be regular speed passing through these two cities.

Either way I think Serbia should build a decent train linking Belgrade-Valjevo-Gornji Milanovac-Cacak-Pozega-Uzice.

No point in extending it to Montenegro. The terrain is just too rough.

Highway would affect it a lot….4 hours from Beg to Adriatic would be awesome….

Yes and when you factor in fuel costs, tolls etc. flying will still be cheaper. Also I don't think it will be 4 hours, minimum 5.

A car with 4-5 people will definitly be much cheaper than all of them flying.

Tbh I think those who are going to be 5 people in the car are not flying now, they are taking the bus or the train.

To Podgorica should be 380km which is below 4 hours. And less than an hour to the coast.

Yes but you are forgetting the border crossing which is extremely strict and can take hours.

It will NEVER be 4 hours Belgrade to the coast. The border crossing will soon take longer too.

Only plane could carry you BEG-MNE-BEG or vv in a single day to do what you have to do. Technically it could be done by car but it's exhausting.

Also isn't the highway in Montenegro like three lanes and not four?

@19:04 The A2 Motorway that runs between Belgrade and Požega and which will eventually connect to the Montenegrin frontier is two lane. I cannot think of any major section of motorway outside of urban spaces that is four lane in the region. Its not the M25 or the Jersey Turnpike mate.

I meant 4 lanes, 2 in each direction.

The modern sections built thus far are are 2 in each direction in Montenegro.

loving the New Jersey Turnpike reference, while also hating the New Jersey Turnpike.

We all know who is advisor of Air Montenegro.

Don't underestimate German influence. They have no benefit from small government-owned airline from the future EU member, except to fight interests of some other mid-sized government-owned airline they have no direct influence over.

16:49
You're probably right. They will use them as a battering ram against JU in hopes of doing some damage. In the process, no one cares about that they will disappear.

Well they are attacking JU this winter on MUC-BEG.

I meant Chinese...

@14:40 enjoy your flight then.