Wizz Air will terminate five routes out the former Yugoslavia in the coming months following their underperformance but will compensate by adding extra capacity on other services. The low cost airline will discontinue two routes each out of Belgrade and Tuzla, and, as previously reported, its Eindhoven - Niš service. "As is normal practice in the aviation industry, flight frequencies change according to travel seasons and route performance. Wizz Air constantly monitors the performance of the routes to allow for the most popular services to have the lowest possible fares. Therefore, in order to best meet our customers’ demand, Tuzla, Belgrade and Niš schedules have been optimised", the airline told EX-YU Aviation News.
Wizz Air will no longer operate flights between the Serbian capital and Nuremberg, which were launched last summer season. The airline initially downgraded the route on November 10 to summer seasonal flights but has now taken the decision to discontinue the service completely. In addition, on January 12, the budget carrier will end operations between Belgrade and Friedrichshafen, which were also introduced this summer season. From Tuzla, Wizz will no longer maintain flights to London Luton and Nuremberg. Last month, the airline initially announced it would limit its Bratislava, London and Nuremberg operations from Tuzla to seasonal summer flights but has since decided to terminate the latter two routes. Flights between Tuzla and Bratislava will resume on April 2.
The low cost airline noted that extra capacity will be allocated to ten other services with higher demand, by increasing weekly frequencies. "The connections between Belgrade - Malta and Belgrade - [Basel] Mulhouse will have three weekly flights; Tuzla - Dortmund, Tuzla - Frankfurt Hahn, Belgrade - Gothenburg Landvetter and Belgrade - Paris Beauvais will be operated four times per week, while Tuzla - [Basel] Mulhouse and Tuzla - Gothenburg Landvetter will each have five weekly services", the airline said. On Monday, Wizz Air unveiled plans to grow its operations to Montenegro by introducing flights from Warsaw and Gdansk to Podgorica, while the airline will also boost operations from Basel and Malmo to Skopje, both of which will run on a daily basis. Furthermore, an additional weekly flight will added on the London Luton - Pristina service next summer for a total of three.
Wizz Air has bases in both Belgrade and Tuzla. Last year. the airline handled 545.000 passengers on flights to and from Serbia, as well as 310.000 travellers on its operations to and from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Serbia-Germany market was way over saturated.
ReplyDeleteMaybe FDH could have worked if they offered more weekly frequencies. Loads were there, seems like the yields weren't.
DeleteI still think Berlin would have worked for them.
Shame
ReplyDeleteThat is what happens when you stretch too much.
ReplyDeleteSo BiH again without connection to UK. Could visas requirements have been a problem for this route?
ReplyDeleteIt was certainly a factor.
Deletefor sure they are
DeleteCould be an indication that there is simply no demand.
DeleteDidn't BA used to fly to Sarajevo?
DeleteIt did.
DeleteNo surprise with London since their loads were not very good on these flights.
Delete@ AnonymousDecember 1, 2017 at 9:33 AM
DeleteThey suspended London-Sarajevo in 2008. Official reason was "high fuel prices".
Maybe they will introduce some new routes instead.
ReplyDeleteThey won't. If you read it says they will increase frequencies on some routes and it says on which ones.
DeleteBEG-MLA. This route will turn to be a true gem. I wouldn't be surprised if it increases to 5 flights pw next year.
ReplyDeleteBEG-MLH: Competing indirectly with JU and LX on the Zurich route - logic.
TZL-LTN suddenly disappeared too.
So now I also have my doubts if W6 will bother basing another a/c in both BEG and TZL...
It says in the text that they will increase Belgrade-Malta to three per week next year.
DeleteAlso it says that Tuzla-London is suspended.
I think there is much more demand for Malta than we all think. Over 1200 Serbs working and Serbs go for tourism or learning English. JU must respond adequately to W6 and to be careful not to lose this important destination.
DeleteRemember that Air Serbia flies there couple of times per week too.
DeleteIt is interesting how Wizz Air can make both Malta and Larnaca work year round and Air Serbia can't past the summer.
DeleteAir Serbia has something Wizz doesn't... It's Dane.
DeleteNema povecanja na liniji Beograd-Eindhoven?
ReplyDeleteTransavia ih ubija. Ako krene svakodnevno, ugrozice i Air Serbiju na liniji za Holandiju.
They will have 4 weekly flights to Eindhoven from March, 30th. The same as last year during the summer season.
DeleteI don't think Air Serbia will be affected for two reasons:
Delete1. they offer better connections onto KL's network than Transavia.
2. Better times for O&D passengers.
Transavia will mostly attract cost sensitive passengers from central and northern NL that didn't fly on JU in the first place.
Transavia actually compliments JU's feed on KLM network (departure and arrival times for HV are partially like that for that reason). HV is not competing with JU, they are competing with W6 and their loads are outstanding for now (in addition to strong demand for 2018).
DeleteIf HV continues with 6pw in 2018 winter season I expect W6 to reduce EIN from BEG since Serbian diaspora in NL is mostly based around Amsterdam and Rotterdam/The Hague.
Cheers from Schiphol.
I'm not sure transavia won't affect Air Serbia. I know that since transavia launched I haven't entered an Air Serbia plane.
Delete#serbianinholland
well, you should be more loyal to the national carrier :)
DeleteI have heard quite a different story regarding Transavia's Belgrade operations. Despite the already announced frequency increase in 2018, a friend of mine in aviation industry told me that HV's loads in BEG aren't that good, and there's a possibility that HV could soon stop flying to Belgrade.
DeleteI'm not sure if he's correct in what he mentioned, I am just passing the info he told to me. It would be great if anyone could provide some passenger figures for us to evaluate the reality.
Them doubling frequncies to Belgrade means that the story your friend told you is likely false.
DeleteYes, they are doing really badly which is why they are doubling flights during the slowest month of the year. lol
DeleteIt's interesting that Transavia will increase number of flights from February to 6 then in July and August they will drop on 3 and in September they will increase number of flights again to 6. They obviously need planes in these two months somewhere else :-)
DeleteSo based on those increases listed all those destinations from Belgrade and Tuzla get one extra flight per week. Nothing much.
ReplyDeleteWell they added the same number of flights that they cut with these suspensions.
DeleteThere is still time until next summer. You never know, they might announce something new too.
Deleteso they are not removing a/c from BEG but redistributing capacities?
ReplyDeletethat is good, but obviously it showing the signs of being overstretched, as somebody noticed above. if this turns out not to yield enough profit we can expect debasing a/c out of BEG in 12-1 months
I don't think they will debase but I doubt we will see them add a new aircraft anytime soon.
DeleteAir travel will steady increase in the future with growth probably around 10% per year in whole ex Yu region maybe even more that that. I don't think they will debase some plane. We can expect that they add new plane to Belgrade in next 3-4 years, it's unlikely that it will happen before. In next couple years they can even try some of this canceled routes again.
DeleteShame. Such a good airline and good for BEG pax growth
ReplyDeletewow I'm surprised they didn't blame the suspension on high fees. That's what they usually do.
ReplyDeleteImagine if an ex-Yu airline suspended these routes. We would have comments like "The end is close"
DeleteTrue. We would already be planning the company's date of closure.
DeleteLuckily they have 80 aircraft flying around the clock so the same conclusions can't be made.
DeleteAnd about the fees... you've confused them with Ryanair. They are the ones that use that excuse literally all the time. Wizz only used it once, in Belgrade, where fees were genuinely increased due to the birth of Air Serbia.
Given that they are still here and expanding only goes to show that they were unrealistically low in the first place. There is no reason why W6 should have a competitive advantage over the others.
DeleteFaulty logic, but no point in fighting you. Hurray for millions of dollars wasted to protect a defunct high cost idea.
DeleteBy the way, W6 has suspended many non ex-Yu destinations too especially from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria to the UK because of Brexit.
ReplyDeleteThey recently bought Monarch's LTN slots and will soon announce new routes from LTN. My guess is that INI will lose EIN but maybe gain LTN. Also, possible LTN-ZAG flights too.
I don't think more LTN-BEG flights are needed given the low demand.
I don't think Brexit playes a role in the suspension of Tuzla-London.
DeleteHope some of those new London routes materialize.
Last anonymus, yes, +1000. No direct link with brexit.
DeleteI guess also Ryanair is killing them on NRN-INI, as Eindhoven is 1 hour away, and tickets were half price with FR. Let see what is the next W6 move at INI. I really expect BVA, OSL or CIA soon!
ReplyDeleteOslo didn't work from Belgrade for them.
DeleteIt was difficult for them to compete with DY which flies from OSL while they had flights from Rygge.
DeleteThe Serbian diaspora in Norway is not that big to sustain two airlines.
DeleteWhy people stupidly thinks that only diaspora flies?
DeleteRelatives fly as well :-)
DeleteThose daily flights from Malmo and Basel to Skopje are probably a rarity in their network where they fly something daily. That said I doubt we will see them expand from Macedonia either next year since there will be a tender for subsidies and they haven't opened a single route in Macedonia without subsidies.
ReplyDeleteAre you spinning or just malinformed? They opened Berlin, Bratislava, Copenhagen with no support .. among others.
DeleteI am impressed BEG-LCA has survived for this long.
ReplyDeleteLarnaca and Malta have now higher standards of living, making them attractive destinations for business and of course leisure. Just look at the frequency of flights to/from neighbouring cities.
DeleteWizz Air has beaten Air Serbia on the Larnaca route which has retreated to seasonal ops. No wonder considering the better fares, scheduling and on board service.
DeleteI think both Cyprus and Malta have had a high standard of living for many years now.
DeleteFares are more or less the same. In summer you can't book Wizz Air for less than €200 without luggage while Air Serbia comes out to be €250 with luggage and daily flights.
In addition to that, Air Serbia still offers a better product.
The only thing W6 has going for them is their daytime flight.
Air Serbia should have kept LCA as four weekly, two flights at 23.55 and two flights at 07.45 (same as TLV).
Had they done that, Wizz Air's LCA flight would have suffered the same fate as NUE and FDH.
A friend of mine works for Amathus and he told me that JU was packed until the very last flight on 15.11. They even extended the route by two weeks and it certainly paid off.
Agree that Cyprus have a high standard of living considering their average net wage of almost 1700€ and although Malta is doing good as well they hardly fall in the same pot as Cyprus with their average of around 1000 €.
DeleteI didn't know Cyprus was that rich! :O
DeleteThey have made a lot of money on Russian money laundering.
DeleteYou would have thought the first causality in Germany would have been Air Serbia after the collapse of Air Berlin but it seems that Wizz Air had issues on these routes.
ReplyDeleteI think it has to do with Air Serbia flying to central airports. Not shacks in the middle of nowhere.
DeleteJU didn't really depent on Air Berlin at all. Its DUS service was very successful, especially after LH retreated a few years back.
DeletePerhaps TXL is the only service that will suffer, but it already saw one frequency axed.
Well LH used to send its CRJ200 so I doubt they really dominated on the market.
DeleteAB collased just recently. We will see if it will have an affect on JU next summer.
Delete@10:13AM
DeleteI took the CRJ200 whenever I went there. Can't beat the private jet feel, especially with a low LF.
Does anyone know what's their best performing route from BEG?
ReplyDeleteMMX?
DeleteLook at which one with the highest number of frequencies and you will find your answer.
DeleteWell that puts to end my hopes that they would start BEG-BCN.
ReplyDeleteYou have Vueling for that route.
DeleteAnd Vueling will next year fly to BEG for the entire summer season from March to November.
DeleteThey will compensate the these suspensions by adding flights to Belgrade and Tuzla but as far as I can see, there are no extra frequencies to Nis.
ReplyDeleteWould be nice if they introduced some new route from Nis.
DeleteThe LF of the BEG-NUE must have been poor for them to suspend it after just 6 months of flying.
ReplyDeleteNo surprise prices were dirt cheap on this route in mid summer.
DeleteWell when Wizz suspends flights, then you know loads were awful.
DeleteOnce upon a time Wizz used to do comprehensive studies into launching new routes. What happened?
ReplyDeleteThey had one exYu guy in management. He left.
DeleteDon't know about that guy, but a lot of people left. Apparently, a lot of them made lots of money when the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange. So they just sold their shares and resigned.
DeleteI'm a bit surprised Bratislava didn't work out from Tuzla on year round basis considering the large Bosnian diaspora in Austria.
ReplyDeleteBecause it probably only caters for the diaspora which only flies during the summer and maybe 2 weeks around Christmas/New Year.
DeleteBratislava from Belgrade would be a hit.
Delete^ Agree, I'm surprised they didn't go for it.
DeleteI was flying from Tuzla to Bratislava in October this year, and the plane was half empty. Mayor of passengers were students in Vienna or their relatives, including me :) I booked this returned flight for 15euros. :)
DeleteIt is mostly because of the rather short distance and not so great hours as you arrive in Bratislava at 21:30 and in Tuzla at 23:00 when it gets much harder to have good transportation to your final destination. It is less then 650 km from Tuzla to Wien and considering most people take an additional transport from Tuzla airport it almost balances out (money wise) if you just take a bus directly from Wien to your city.
DeleteI'm kind of sick of Wizz Air and its diaspora routes. Maybe time for them to reconsider and open something new that does not purely rely on gasterbaiters.
ReplyDeleteand you are going to compensate them for potentially half-empty planes?
Deletehow to pay this with a 200euro salary. Even the tickets are for free, people can't afford the journey
DeleteWhere is salary 200e?
Deleteso what do you think? just guess!
Delete200 e salary in his head.
Deletelooks like Wizz didn't do its homework with the their latest expansion from TZL and BEG.
ReplyDeletePity but it is normal for them to try routes and see what works and what not.
ReplyDeleteThis is the second time they suspended routes from Tuzla and said how it would be seasonal and then a few months later suspended them completely. They did the same with TZL-Oslo.
ReplyDeleteTuzla is a bit problematic during the winter because of adverse weather conditions. A lot of planes get diverted. Even during the summer they were forced to divert to BEG several times. I doubt that is good for a LCC.
DeleteI don't think weather is the reason they suspended these routes.
DeleteTuzla needs another airline. Their entire success and future depends on one single airline.
DeleteAgree. Just goes to show how risky it is to rely on a single airline for all your traffic.
DeleteBeggars can't be choosers.
DeleteFrom this we can see that Skopje remains their only success story in Ex yu so far. I doubt they can expand some more from Macedonia, except maybe to try their luck with Madrid/Valencia and Portugal.
ReplyDeleteTrue. They haven't dropped a single route from Skopje yet.
DeleteOne of the reasons being that they have no competition in Skopje on any of their routes.
DeleteAnd in Tuzla they have?
Deletetouché
DeleteTuzla is between Belgrade and Zagreb.
Delete@Anon 1:06
DeleteSkopje is between Pristina, Sofija and Thessaloniki.
last anon, you forgot INI ;)
DeleteIs there any other airport in ex-YU where Wizz Air received funds to fly? I don't mean discounted fees, I mean money as they did in SKP.
Deleteeven with a 3€ pax tax INI cannot sustain EIN. just saying
DeleteAnon 4:01 PM - so if the tax is lowered to 1,5€, do you think they will stay? INI is one of the most generous airports in Europe regarding tax.
DeleteHmm yet in ex-YU, INI next to BEG is the only airport where LX actually increased flights next year.
DeletePlaces like SKP can only work if they get Edelweiss.
places like INI should be happy with that they have. If you start comparing, you will very soon notice that it was better zo keep quiet
Deletenext step is QR in INI ;) better yet EK
DeleteWell until the Macedonian government paid W6 to fly, the airport handled twice of what INI will have this year. ;)
DeleteNiska Banja med i mleko
Deletekisses from Macedonia baby
DeleteKisses back to Macedonia. I hope you fix SKG by the deadline. :)
DeleteEK may be too much but FlyDubai is highly probable and expected. Kisses to all
Delete5 routes did not turn profitable. It´s not the end of the world.
ReplyDeleteNo one said it was.
DeleteIt's not a big deal because the suspensions are compensated. So the number of flights operated next summer stays the same.
ReplyDeleteIs there a Serb community in NUE?
ReplyDeleteWhat about Slovenia ? why they have base in Tuzla and not in Ljubljana ? Ljubljana has bigger potencial than Tuzla !( just my opinion )'
ReplyDeleteIt does but it also has much much bigger fees than Tuzla.
DeleteBosna na zalost ima ogromnu dijasporu, posebno nakon 90tih godina... a vecina te dijaspore zivi u Nemackoj, Austriji, Svedskoj, i ostalim zemljama "Zapadne Evrope". Ovo je idealno mesto za njih, a da ne koriste autobuse, niti aerodrom Nikola Tesla Beograd. Tri puta sam putovao iz Tuzle i jako sam zadovoljan. Za manje od 20e za povratnu kartu do Memingena, Bratislave ili Bazela je idealno. I aerodrom Tuzla postaje sve popularniji.
DeleteManje od 20e je idealno svima osim za Wizz. Njima je to nize od troskova leta do Bazela i drugih aerodroma, pa time gube pare na svakom putniku koji plati samo 20e. Zato morate platiti mnogo vise ili ce linija pre ili kasnije biti ukinuta.
DeleteŠto da ideš do Tuzle kad od Beograda možeš do Dusseldorfa za manje od 60e i dobiješ kufer uključen u tu cenu sa Er Srbijom.
DeleteI hope they look into opening some other destinations. There is still room for them to grow in this region.
ReplyDeleteGood news for Air Serbia since Nuremberg is relatively close to Frankfurt and Stuttgart while Friedrichshafen is close to Zurich. BTW Friedrichshafen is a beautiful little town :)
ReplyDeleteI am sure LH is also happy.
DeleteNurnberg close to Frankfurt and Stuttgart? I think that somebody have missed the Geography classes
DeleteIn late Fall and winter Friedrichshafen is covered in fog very often-its like the horror movie from the eearly eighties.
DeleteShame about Friedrichshafen. There are a lot of us Serbian students in Konstantz and this was ideal to Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ryanair just launched "rescue fares" from Nis for their flights to Weeze since Wizz is suspending the Eindhoven route.
ReplyDeleteOMG hahaha are you serious?!
DeleteI am still more than shocked about INI-EIN. Yes, I know FR is competing with them by launching INI-NRN but come on, EIN is also close to AMS. Or maybe it is INI that needs a 3rd destination to Germany instead? How about INI-HHN or INI-FKB?
ReplyDeleteI think its time for INI-BVA.
DeleteOne major problem with INI-EIN is that flying to the NL from Belgrade is relatively cheap so people don't feel such a big need to fly out of Nish.
DeleteSo in other words, Serbia-Holland market is already saturated you mean?
Delete@Anon 3:41 PM - completely agree with you. Paris has always been doing fine. Sadly, AF left BEG in 2012, if you remember...
http://www.exyuaviation.com/2012/09/exclusive-air-france-to-suspend-belgrade.html
I think with both Transavia and Wizz Air flying from Belgrade the market is already kind of full. Add to that Air Serbia and...
DeleteWizzair to suspends LTN-SPU too
ReplyDeleteGood.
DeleteExcellent news! Open slot for some other better destination.
DeleteIf they don't pull an acft out of BEG base, is there. a chance to see daily flights from BEG to MMX or elsewhere?
ReplyDeleteThey are not pulling an aircraft out. The 4 weekly flights BEG has lost with these two route suspensions have been substituted by an additional 4 weekly flights to the cities that are listed in the second last paragraph.
Delete