Farewell to Ohrid
This summer, Slovenia’s Adria Airways will no longer be featuring Ohrid in its timetable. The seasonal summer service has been cut in face of low interest and sliding passenger numbers. Ohrid is the latest in a string of destinations which have been terminated or downgraded as seasonal summer services. Other destinations include Bucharest and Oslo (cancelled) while Madrid and Barcelona are operated only on a seasonal basis. On the other hand, the airline will launch 6 weekly flights to Belgrade on March 1. Adria did mange to finish 2009 as the second largest EX-YU airline in terms of passenger numbers, behind Croatia Airlines but in front of Jat Airways. The airline carried 953.400 passengers, a decline of 13.6% compared to 2008. Meanwhile, Croatia carried 1.700.300 passengers while Jat managed 935.900.As previously reported, Adria Airways will relocate to Maribor during runway upgrades at Ljubljana Airport which will be carried out from April 7 to 20. Other airlines have also announced their alternatives with easyJet temporarily suspending its London Stansted route during this period. Jat Airways will move its services to Portorož and Turkish Airlines is reportedly also considering serving Maribor. It is unclear at this point what alternatives will be chosen by Air France, CSA Czech Airlines and Montenegro Airlines.
This summer, Jat will join Edelweiss Air as the only confirmed carrier that will be operating to Ohrid. Jat will, for a second year in a row, operate direct services to the lake side town, rather than via Skopje as it has done previously. The 2 weekly flights commence June 1 and can be found in the new route launches section.
"Croatia carried 1.700.300 passengers "
ReplyDeleteMilijardu i sedamsto hiljada i 300 putnika!!!!Wow Croatia Airlines je prevezla jednu trecinu svjetske populacije prosle godine, bilo bi fino kad bi bilo stvarno ;)
Predpostavljam nenamjerna greska...
That is really shame! Ohrid is such a beautiful place, with so much to see and offer! Now when Macedonia is on white Schenegen list, and with summer season coming, I really do not see why some of LCC wouldn't offer (with a good marketing of course!) services to Ohrid(and Skopje too). I am sure and so positive that Ohrid with good marketing and presentation would be a great tourist destination amongst countries which probably do not even know that such a beautiful place exists. Ryanair is doing great thing with even smaller towns and with less potetntial than Ohrid has. Lets hope this will change.
ReplyDelete@ anonymous 1
ReplyDeleteMilijard is billion...they did not transport 1 billion passengers, rather "Милионаседамстохиљадаитриста" or "milijunasedamstohiljadaitrista" :) lol
@ anonymous 2
i guess the demand isnt enough to fill some bigger aircraft. intresting how SKP and OHD havnt gained much in air traffic since the visa liberation.
That what I am think that these airports haven't gained more airlines, routes and LCC since visa liberation.....
ReplyDeleteThese forigners do not know : "makedonsko devojce, kitka sarena..." :-)
Haha well airports in Macedonia did gain very little passengers increase
ReplyDeleteaccording to latest statistics
January 2010 there were done 953 flights to OHD and SKP, compare to 905 in January 2009.
47.355 passegers used SKP and OHD compare to 41.723 in January 2009 which is increase of 13,5 % , this is of course vry little but still good numbers :)
I really hope Wizz Air or RyanAir will show interest for Macedonian airport this year.
Best Regards
Aleksandar
JU520 BEGLAX
ReplyDeleteJP should not only close OHD but also stop flying to Kiev, Warsaw, reduce 1 of the 3 daily VIE-FRA and find a cooperation with a southernhemmisphere carrier, who would take over their surplus of aircrafts in winter and v.versa.
Also they should find a cooperation with OU, so OU could fly with its DASH passengers from MUC,VIE, ev MXP to Portoroz.
BCN,ATH,MAN,ARN I would connect from 05MAR until 05JAN.
No other destinations than MAN,LGW,CPH,ARN,CDG,BRU,AMS,MUC,VIE,FRA,ZRH,BCN,ATH,IST,SVO plus the EX Yu destination. Move as much as flights per destinations. Not only 1-2 per week.
Of course some charters to Turkey, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt
JU520 BEGLAX
ReplyDeleteI meant no nother destinations than MAN,LGW,BCN,CPH,CDG,BRU,Amsterdam, Munich, Vienna, Frankfurt, Zurich and Athens, Istanbul, Stockholm. Move at least 3 flights a week per destination. Best is 5-7
Just a little remark, easyJet flies from LJU to Stansted, not to Luton
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous 1
ReplyDeleteTi si izgleda spavao na casu matematike. 1.700.300 se cita milion-sedamsto-tisuca-tristo putnika. Ne znam gdje si ti vidio milijardu u tom broju :)
@ Anonymous_2 said:
ReplyDelete"Now when Macedonia is on white Schenegen list, and with summer season coming, I really do not see why some of LCC wouldn't offer (with a good marketing of course!) services to Ohrid..."
This is a contradition in terms. The white Schengen list implies that Macedonians can fly out without visas, which has nothing to do with travellers visiting Ohrid because it's "such a beautiful place" (by the way, I agree that it's definitely a good destination). The people that you are trying to attract as tourists have been able to visit Ohrid without visas for a long time.
@ Aleksandar
Where do you get the PAX stats for Macedonian airports? Their official website is rather poor. Their latest stats date back to February 2009 when I think things were so bad they stopped 'tracking' them. See below:
http://skp.airports.com.mk/default.aspx?ItemID=352
JU520 BEGLAX
ReplyDeletewhat I never will understand is the weak marketing carriers such as JP are doing. Since December it s public that JP flies in March to BEG? Do you see any P.R. on JP website? Last year the same with MAD.
Proper marketing would be advertisements in the cities, newspapers, own website, www.visitljubljana.si website, informing the press, and on the day of operating flight, invite the press to attend the flight ceremonies and tour-operators to fly BEG in order to poste travel-articles afterwards. This kind of a marketing is a foreign word within the JP organisation.
@Visit Kosovo
ReplyDeleteRegarding what I said about Schengen white list is because that LCC have been giving that as a main reason whay they are not flying to those countries. As you have said and i have said, when I said Ohrid is such a beautiful destination I meant that could be and should be more vistited, but at THE SAME time Macedionians who wish to fly from there and visit other cities withing Schengen area would have an oportunity to do so. I do agree with you that is a stupid excuse, bur for example, Serbian citizens still need visa for the Uk but Wizzair is starting flights to London and only one Schengen city(Dortmund!!). Why is that? Anyway, if Ryanair starts flying to any of these cities I will be the first one to go and visit, until then I would rather go somewhere else where for that money(current airllines charge) and have return flight and 7 days accommodation! Don't you all agree?
about foreign LCC airlines flying to Macedonia: As far as i know, aviation authorities has too much bureaucracy, making many of airlines not possible to inaugurate flights to Macedonia.
ReplyDeleteIs the problem the Macedonian government, the OHD airport authority, the Macedonian tourism board, the City of Ohrid, or a combination of the above? Either they really don't want people to visit their region, or a degree of incompotency/corruption/arrogance/stupidity is at play here...
ReplyDeleteAnd JAT should be ashamed that with the largest fleet in the exYU region, they could only manage barely half the number of OU, and beaten by JP with a fleet 20% smaller.
@ JU520
Slovenia is the ONLY exYU country in the EU, there is perhaps some low-level demand for direct flights to certain cities - more evident when the country held the rotating presidency.
Agree with your sentiments that there needs to be greater integration with OU, or alternatively one airline move to another alliance to provide some true competition! (Though this airline would then have to take on LH into Germany in a significant way)
Da razjasnimo neke stvari koje se neprestano ponavljaju:
ReplyDeleteVizna liberalizacija i barijere nikada nisu bile citirane kao razlog zbog kojeg odredjeno trziste nije usluzeno od strane LCC-ja. To je lokalna medijumska propaganda da se ne bi videli pravi razlozi i da se ni slucajno ne izgubi samopouzdanje lokalnog stanovnistva da su bas oni najvazniji.
Pravi razlozi?
1. Bilateralna ogranicenja - mozda su exYu drzavice potpisale Open Skies, ali dali ste proverili dali su sve EU drzave, posebno one atraktivnije, ratifikovale isti? Niko od lokalnih novinara se nije ni setio da proveri taj fakt i premesti pritisak na drugu stranu, a mozda se i ne sme.
2. Cene taksi - nefleksibilnost da se promeni nacin poslovanja, smanje takse i da se pravi prihodi stvore alternativnim, dodatnim uslugama. Za to treba malo vise posla, a i transparentnije je - dve velike prepreke za nase Balkance.
3. Lokalno trziste je impotentno, glavno trziste je Zapadna Evropa / USA - tamo gde je i kapital. Ovo nikada necete procitati u novinama. Proverite cene na povratnim letovima, to je jedna mala indikacija. Avio kompanijama, posebno LCC, uopste nije u interesu da lansiraju iskljucivo turisticke destinacije, oni traze linije koje bi radile preko cele godine, a za takvo nesto je neophodan ili turisticki interes da bi stranci dolazili, kao recimo u Budimpestu ili Prag, ili dijaspora.
Eto, pa se ponovo pitajte zasto Rumunija i Bugarska imaju sve te silne linije za Spaniju, a Srbija ne.
Izvinite sto nije na engleskom, ali ovo je primarno bilo upuceno nasim ljudima, kao mala doza demistifikacije od nekoga dovoljno (ne)srecnog da ima direktan uvid u stvari.
ReplyDeleteSve sto je Marionette rekao cista istina! Navedene stavke su tuzne, ali apsolutna istina!Dok god je takve politiki, OKUPANE korupcijom! I naravno da je vizni rezim samo dobar izgovor za nedolazak LCC i drugih! Iskreno, 5 puta manji gradovi i aerodromi, sa mnogo manje da ponude su puni turista koji naravno lete sa LCC. Ja bih rado otisao i posjetio Skopje, Ohrid, Nis itd. ali za cijene koje nam se nude trenutno je nevjerovatno. Npr. ljudi koji uopste ne bi posjetili neki grad/destinaciju se odlucuju upravo na taj korak kad vide jeftinu kartu. Osijek je jedan od primjera, Zadar, itd. Licno i uradio zahvaljujuci Ryanair-u. Pozdrav svima
ReplyDeleteMacedonia used to protect MAT airlines and their civil aviation applications were prepared accordingly. An airline had to go through bilaterals which were quite tough and limited.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, when an airline wanted to fly from Nice, for instance, civil aviation would go and ask MAT's opinion. If MAT has an intention to fly to Nice at some point in the future, they rejected the airline's application and MAT could take up to 6 months to declare its decision and usually rejected pretty much any application to stay clear of competetition. The difficulties and the slow speed of decision making made the LCCs stay away from SKP and OHD.
After MAT's bankruptcy, the country had pretty much no traffic left (maybe that was an eye opener), so the civil aviation started removing or easing the bilaterals one by one. The open skies will definitely be the ultimate removal of any restrictions, which is due soon.
I hope that will happen soon and I will fly with Ryanir(or any real LCC!!) to Ohrid :-)))
ReplyDelete... vo gradina nabrana, da podarena...
Pozdrav
Hey, Adria transported 1.143.542 pax in year 2009 (scheduled and charters) and 1.962 tonnes of cargo.
ReplyDeleteIt operated 26.133 flights with average LF 63,27.