Niš Constantine the Great Airport will open its new terminal building (pictured) within the next ten days with talks underway to secure new flights for the 2025 summer season. It comes as the airport faces declining passenger numbers, handling 168.406 travellers during the first half of the year, down 19% on the same period in 2023. The airport blames the underperformance on Wizz Air which has been forced to reduce its operations due to the grounding of aircraft as a result of manufacturing issues with engines on part of its fleet. “The big changes that are happening in Niš are being monitored by other airlines that currently do not serve the city. We are in contact with them” Dušan Kovačević, the CEO of Niš Airport, said.
The Serbian Minister for Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, Goran Vesić, previously noted that discussions were ongoing with Air Serbia for the introduction of several new routes from Niš, in addition to the existing seven which are maintained as part of a Public Service Obligation (PSO) contract. “We are in discussions with Air Serbia for the opening of several new routes from Niš. I will be working on this matter in the coming period so Niš will continue to have more and more passengers”, Mr Vesić said, without specifying the potential new routes. The carrier currently maintains services from the southeast Serbian city to Belgrade, Cologne, Hahn, Istanbul, and Ljubljana, as well as seasonally to Athens and Tivat. It also runs a number of summer charters.
The new terminal building in Niš is currently undergoing Operational Readiness and Airport Transition procedures ahead of its imminent opening. The new facility has the capacity to handle 1.5 million passengers per year and up to six aircraft at the same time. It boasts ten check-in desks, self-check-in stations, eight passport control booths, four passenger gates and one VIP gate. Furthermore, it features a luggage sorting facility. New food and beverage outlets, as well as duty free shops will be added over an area 700 square metres. Initially, it will be used for departing passengers with the old terminal to be used for handling arriving travellers. However, the airport plans to demolish the old terminal and construct a new building which will form a single functioning unit with the new terminal. A car park with the capacity for 580 vehicles, has also been built.
Is this the best use of public money?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Ниш is a big city in Serbia and is not that close to BEG (like Нови Сад), so it requires decent aviation infrastructure for future development.
DeleteTerminal building it had until now was horrible and it was a true horror to use it. So in my opinion this investment was more than needed.
Civil aviation is part of Serbian DNA so we need to nurture its development and not just in BEG.
Big city? It doesn't even have 200,000 people!
DeleteHe wrote it's a big city in Serbia which by local standards it is. Feel free to apologize.
DeleteOver 2 million lives in South Serbia, and probably Nis has more than 350000 people. Cople of million passangers is realistic.
DeleteIn ex yu terms it is….
DeleteYou really think Niš will have more traffic than Ljubljana and Sarajevo?
DeleteI think that nobody mentioned LJU and SJJ but you.
DeleteI think INI can have 1.5 million in the next 10 years. You have eastern, southern and central Serbia which can gravitate towards it.
DeletePeople said TZL is much bigger market than LJU so INI market is also much bigger.
Delete+1
DeleteTerminal looks good.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThey also opened a clinic with two emergency vehicles, this would make them attractive for medical diversions. Especially since Clinical Center of Nis is about 10 minutes from there.
DeleteHas anyone seen the apron on the airside of the new building? Uncut grass, no sign of asphalt. It woild take 3 months to build an apron at least. However, knowing the ruling party' s methods, i am not surprised they say opening is in 10 days
DeleteI saw 3 days ago none of tgat what you mention in your comment mr negative Anonymous22:21
DeleteI saw that July 3rd
DeleteAny idra which routes JU could potentially add?
ReplyDelete*idea
DeleteWith all the capacity constraints they have, I don't think they will launch anything new from INI.
DeleteWell, Zurich didn't work out for JU before. Market down there is extremely price sensitive.
DeleteDefinitely something in Germany, Basel with catchment area of Swiss and France, and some city at the north, not sure where is the biggest diaspora from south Serbia
DeleteIncreasing BEG frequencies would be the best they can do, I guess.
DeleteKarlsruhe is a perfect airport in that manner.
DeleteI think Berlin in summer and Paris year-round could work especially since CDG flights from BEG are full and tickets are expensive. They could direct some of the market to INI.
DeleteI agree with both, especially since Berlin is a line that is already proven to work. Paris of course is fool-proof.
DeleteThere might be one problem with Berlin and that is the cost of BER, it's a very expensive airport to fly from. Paris should be served, no doubt, via BVA.
DeleteMaybe INI-EIN could work and I would give INI-ZRH another try but this time around flights should operate in summer.
Yep, this is why FR chose to cut it... As someone from Nis I flew INI-BER at least once or twice a year, it was perfect for a city break. The plane was always packed to the brim! Yields were probably not the greatest, hence the cut... Same as BGY which we btw sorely miss!
DeleteI think berlin can work in summer from nish
DeleteI vote for INI LAX.
DeleteCould look at Amsterdam, Madrid, cdg. INI could work marketing not only to southern half of serbia, but also offering another option to western Bulgaria and macedonia since those markets are LCC heavy and are connected mostly to the other cheap airports like Eindhoven and london luton.
Deleteto offer that catchment area another option to reach more hubs. to reach north america etc.
So happy for INI !
ReplyDeleteTerminal looking very nice and modern. The biggest issue similar to LJU is that INI is in a relatively populated area close to SOF, SKP, INI and many routes are also "duplicated". One will see what happens, but hey the terminal looks even better than in BEG lol :D
ReplyDeleteSKP, SOF, PRN sorry
DeleteI think SOF will be less and less of an issue going forward as in summer the waiting period at the border can be quite exhausting. I think that's one of the reasons why JU's BEG-SOF is performing quite well. I took this route quite a few times and roughly 40% of the passengers were P2P.
DeleteWell economically South Serbia is econoimic giant for PRN. Sorry, but Nis has more potential for growth. South Serbia has more people than whole Macedonia. Good planning will bring results. Sorry
DeleteWell, now that BEG is doing well and slowly developing at its own pace, I think the government can put a greater focus on regional airports. I agree that INI has a lot of potential especially since charter traffic seems to be performing well. Seems like Serbs from that area are ditching buses and cars and are increasingly switching to flying.
DeleteIt might be me but it seems like Egypt's popularity has somewhat faded. I wouldn't be surprised if many switched to Tunisia. I don't think there are INI-Egypt charters this year.
One of my friends flew BEG-INI a few days ago. It was not much more expensive than the bus and time wise under 2.5 hours from BEG centre to INI arrival. He was closer to the airport than the bus station but that’s probably the advantage in time save. I will stick to Niš Express for that route for now though lol. But definitely looking forward to departing from the new terminal in August!
DeleteSorry but management is incompetent. They have not attracted a new airline in over 5 years.
ReplyDeleteWhich airline do you think is gonna fly to INI lol
DeleteTwo of the three biggest in Europe fly there so I'm sure they could have done more to attract someone. Transavia France seasonally from Paris or EasyJet from Geneva.
DeleteNot to defend them but it's not like they could have done much when they were faced with Wizz Air cuts.
DeleteSeems like W6 has given up completely on INI as on their website they removed all destinations from Nis with the exception of DTM and BSL. Luckily Ryanair reacted to Wizz's termination of VIE by boosting their own flights.
I think going forward INI needs to base its growth on a JU-FR combination the same way BEG is doing it with JU-W6. I don't see anyone else besides Air Serbia or Ryanair growing there. Maybe, just maybe we could see a summer charter carrier fly there for a few months, someone like Sky Express or Nouvelair.
Flew from INI once and it was like entering a time capsule to the 1980s. So this will be a nice change.
ReplyDeleteMore Scandinavian routes as lots of people from the South of Serbia work there and you cant easily catch a bus or drive. Also Netherlands. Interesting that first JAT route in 1980s was LHR, not sure why it was important then and if still needed now.
ReplyDeleteTerminal looking good from the outside and writing on it as well. Good luck Nis for additional flights!
ReplyDeletePlease return flights VIE-INI on sunday so that it can be used friday-sunday visits as it was.
ReplyDeleteGreat!
ReplyDelete@Anon 16:48
DeleteLHR was first, bringing British tourists to Kopaonik.
So what happened to Niš-Dublin?
ReplyDeleteYou can't be serious.
DeleteI am serious, but I also don't read the news that much. Was supposed to start this summer but I don't see any non-stop flights?
DeleteNothing happened. Ryanair applied for slots, got them but decided to use them on another route. They never scheduled the flights.
DeleteThey should really start double daily beg to ini and 3 pw kvo to beg to capture connections.
ReplyDeleteKVO is a bit too close; 2 daily to Niš and 4 pw to Užice should be the option - of which 2 daily to Niš is a must.
DeleteSame to Tuzla, Osijek, Timisoara
DeleteOU should open ZAG - INI and become the only Star Alliance airline in INI
DeleteThey talk about new routes since they took over the airport, but so far they've lost dozens of them. I'm afraid they'll increasingly push Air Serbia and lose the few low-cost flights they still have, and that passenger numbers will continue to decline because of this. Unfortunately!
ReplyDeleteI think the same as you. If W6 doesn't resume canceled flights or if FR doesn't initiate a major expansion, it's unlikely that the passenger numbers will ever surpass last year's figures.
DeleteNot to mention that Nis Airport director keeps talking about how Wizz is forced to suspend many flights from Niš due to aircraft issues. So how is it that they are increasing the number of flights in Belgrade by 15, launching flights from Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Tirana, Budapest. Someone didn't inform the director, or he's using it as an excuse for poor management.
DeleteWizz themselves explained why they had to make cuts at many airports. This is not something made up at INI as an excuse. Flights at Tuzla have been cut significantly, how is that INI fault? BEG flights have not been increased, it's just an announcement for Sep and Oct. How come you are not aware of all that before blaming only Nis airport?
DeleteWould be nice to have EIN or AMS or DTM or DUS (last three were operated over the years to INI and always full but still cancelled). So passengers from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany can travel again.
ReplyDelete