Air Serbia will add additional departures on its newly launched two weekly Niš – Vienna service during the upcoming holiday period. The airline will double operations between the two cities to four weekly from December 22 until January 9, with additional flights on Tuesdays and Saturdays, complementing the existing Wednesday and Sunday service. The carrier will continue to deploy the ATR72-600 aircraft between the two cities. Air Serbia launched operations between the two on October 25, replacing Ryanair which has exited the market.
Good to see the route is performing well
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteGreat news. Hopefully FR come back one day, but till then this is welcome.
ReplyDeleteHopefully not. Ever! They are not reliable and not committed to Serbian (or any) market, so no one needs them. Farewell FR!
DeleteHope them come back. They are the biggest airline in Europe for a reason.
DeleteHope FR comes to SKP too
Delete+1 I agree. They will one day. Its destiny for us all :)
DeleteLOL
DeleteLOL is such a childish response. Why write something at all when you clearly have nothing to write?
DeleteBecause they are simple
DeleteThey really will need extra ATRs
ReplyDeleteThis route is a no-brainer; it has a potential to grow even more, ATR is ideal for it to make a profit
ReplyDeleteThis route really should be daily with the ATR a perfect fit.
ReplyDeleteI've always believed Air Serbia could do a lot more at INI with the ATRs. Daily to Vienna, several weekly to Istanbul for eastward connections with TK and double daily to BEG for all connections within its own BEG network. And keep Athens and Tivat in summer for holidays. And you have everything covered with the right amount of capacity and very little investment. Now that Ryanair is away would be a perfect moment to execute such a strategy.
ReplyDeleteDouble daily would be a good idea, only the ATR42 fan thinks that.
DeleteAgree except that two daily flights between two airports within 250km distance is not a best way to utilise your resources.
DeleteI would rather see more flights from INI to western cities
The physical proximity is irrelevant here. I'm sure that a lot more than 150 people travel daily from South Serbia to Surčin to catch a flight. Why not save them the hassle and tie their loyalty to ASL by offering daily connections in both ways? Clearly, this would not be for P2P pax.
DeleteIts very relevant mate.
DeleteBut two days ago we saw that experts wrote here that AT42 is a loss making plane and no transfers are needed between BEG and INI, TSR, TZL or OSI. Probably OS was stupid to fly VIE-GRZ for 50 years or still flies VIE-BUD twice a day.
DeleteYou clearly are NOT an expert.
DeleteWe wrote that ATR42 is loss-making aircraft for non-PSO routes. For PSO routes every aircraft is profit-making.
DeleteVIE-GRZ is closing due to huge loss route made in the last few years. That tells something.
And Graz is a rich place..
DeleteThree differences, though: (1) Graz has a functioning rail connection to Vienna, and Vienna has a functioning rail connection to the airport. Big difference. You can leave, like, every half hour and be at the airport predictably within 3 hours. (2) Short flights to Vienna were subject to a punitive surcharge meant to discourage flying. (3) The EU airline market is thoroughly liberalized, meaning that there are other options directly from Graz. This makes it harder for Austrian to compete with their one-stop option. Many of those competing options benefit Lufthansa, which controls Austrian's decisions. And there you have it. Not a comparable situation to INI
DeleteThat all being correcr doesnt make Nis a lucrative market though. No matter your wishful thinking.
Delete@15:09 For you, I am super expert.
DeleteOS retired it's turboprops and now retiring Ejets, so GRZ is finally cut after so long time. JU have both ATRs and Ejets. And OS still flies to KLA, which is 3 hours driving from Vienna, despite fast railway is available. Why? Because they are protecting their turf.
@19:36 you're a bit simple, but its fine. Each to their own.
DeleteThe claim that "physical proximity is irrelevant" completely ignores airline microeconomics and asset management.
DeleteIf proximity drove routes, Europe would be teeming with ultra-short domestic hops. If you know anything about transport geography examine the likes of Cardiff–London, Maastricht–Amsterdam, Milan–Venice, and Stuttgart–Frankfurt (permanently axed by Lufthansa in 2026) have zero flights.
At the 250km tier, flying simply cannot compete with driving or rail due to three harsh industry realities:
• Front-Loaded Cycles: Takeoff/landing fees and fuel burn during taxi and climb are fixed and front-loaded. On a 45-minute leg, a plane burns through capital before it even reaches cruise altitude.
• Slot Opportunity Cost: Hub slots are finite and hyper-valuable. Burning a slot on a short regional hop is an operational tragedy when that same slot could host a higher-yielding rotation or in the case of the bigger airports long-haul widebody flights.
• Equipment Utilization: Multi-million-euro hulls only make money when they are flying long, continuous sectors. Sinking aircraft and crew into short routes—where they spend more time sitting at gates than racking up block hours—destroys asset utilization.
Aviation only enters this ultra-short-haul space when artificial distortions override the economics. This requires either massive premium business yields (e.g., NYC–DC) or severe geographical/political friction like seas, mountains, or hard international borders (e.g., Seattle–Vancouver).
Without those specific distortions, land infrastructure likely wins every time. Proximity isn't irrelevant; it is the exact boundary where the short-haul aviation business model collapses.
It’s so disrespectful calling anyone experts. We’re all here aviation lovers and we’re exchanging opinions. If you don’t agree simply present yours. That’s all.
Delete+1
DeleteI flew INI-BEG last week and we were around 35-40 passengers onboard. Only 3 of us exited in Belgrade.
DeleteWhen you factor in fuel prices, tolls and all that driving is not cheap. You can find one way tickets for like €20 or less. Took us 35 minutes on the ATR. Obviously people like to connect in BEG.
Great for you.
DeleteIdemo dalje ..
ReplyDeleteThis is just for holydays.
ReplyDeleteBetter than nothing. But if they continue to fill their planes very well, JU will surely react and add frequencies just as it always does.
DeleteEven a daily INI to BEG would be a huge improvement from what we get now.
ReplyDeleteAre you from Nis by any chance lol.
DeleteI m not but I did visit the city for the first time this past summer.
DeleteIts a nice city. I adore it. Most people from Nis have no issue driving up to Belgrade if need be to fly. The economic case for significantly increased internal flying does not stack up and that is why JU don't expand it greatly.
DeleteAnd how do you know that JU isn't increasing because it doesn't make money? Maybe it's because they don't have enough planes.
DeleteKeep a dreamin'.
DeleteI also believe that JU could do much more in INI with ATRs. I wish INI to grow even more, we saw that INI has potential, but JU is not interested in growing in INI while they have many more profitable routes to grow from BEG. INI should get free and start discussions with LCC to come back and grow. INI region is price sensitive, but LCC could do wonders. Many people would travel from Belgrade to fly from INI if there is nice offer of destinations.
ReplyDeleteIsnt it better if they just operate daily or at least five weekly flights with a W rotation? BEG-VIE-INI-VIE-BEG?
ReplyDeleteIt would be better, but how? JU already flies to Vienna up to 3 times a day.
DeleteNo because then you lose connections in BEG.
DeleteBravo Air Serbia 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
ReplyDeleteThat service to Niš was first launched late 1980, maybe 2 years before the wars, by JAT, to take foreign tourists closer to Kopaonik ski fields.
ReplyDeleteNow, Viena, Austria, they know a thing or two about skiing better than Serbia. Unless Kopaonik is one third of the price (may well be 30% more than in Austria), it may rest on Serbian expats coming home. Serbian brick layers and construction workers would not be after skiing.
Maybe, when those works stop in Austrian winter they come to visit their families in and around Niš. I doubt Kopaonik would see a single passenger from that air service.
While i suspect you are correct that view people actively use these flights to go skiing, times have changed massively since the 80s. Not quite sure how modern it is to view the large Austrian-Serb populace through the lens of bricklayers and builders, but we can let that pass.
DeleteBut what has changed is its a modern era of mobility. People travel, people visit their families and friends, Serbs go to Vienna on holiday and to spend their money there. The flights between Vienna and Niš cover a wide catchment area which goes way beyond Kopaonik and i think that speaks of quite an outdated view of the demand.
My bricklayer from BEG goes for Crete every September he works hard all summer. He doesn't ski but goes to Hungarian hot spas.
DeleteLast Sunday, I flew from Vienna to Niš, and I would like to share my very positive experience!
ReplyDeleteThe flight departed on time, everything was well organized, and the journey was very pleasant. There were 61 passengers on board, including two infants, and the flight took approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Some passengers were a little surprised to see a turboprop aircraft instead of the Airbus or Boeing planes they might be used to from airlines such as Wizz Air or Ryanair. However, I personally found the flight very comfortable and enjoyable.
What impressed me most was the excellent service and the great value for money. I booked my ticket just one day before departure for only €65, including hand luggage. Online check-in was simple, and everything worked perfectly.
Another nice surprise was the complimentary onboard service, including a small bottle of water and a snack. This is something you rarely get with low-cost airlines nowadays!
Overall, I was extremely satisfied with the entire experience. A big thank you to the airline and the crew for such a pleasant flight!
I really hope this route will continue to develop and that flight frequencies will increase in the future. I would definitely fly with them again! ✈️🇦🇹🇷🇸
Thanks for that. A good price indeed for the day before! Just to say that no major low cost airlines give complimentary water or snacks for free, most legacy airlines don't too. While a tiny bottle of water and a packet of biscuits are essentially irrelevant in comparison to other factors such as price and timing, its great that JU are doing well and seem to be charging fair prices. Cheers.
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