Soon in Prština
Germany’s national carrier has made good on its promise from earlier this year and will commence flights to Priština from March 2011. In an official statement made by the airport, the German giant will operate 4 weekly flights from Dusseldorf. This December, Adria Airways will commence flights from Priština to Munich, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf as well, in what is believed to be a trial run for its Star Alliance partner Lufthansa. Priština is well connected with Germany with Air Berlin, Germania and Germanwings all offering flights to Germany.The airport also announced that British Airways and easyjet will increase their frequencies to the airport next summer. “We are very satisfied with the interest displayed by new airlines in terms of commencing flights and increasing the number of frequencies”, Agron Mustafa, the director of Priština Airport said. He added that new flights would bring more competition and would increase the airport’s appeal. The airport expects to handle some 1.3 million passengers by the end of 2010.
Priština Airport has recently been renamed to Adem Jashari Internetional Airport, a controversial figure regarded as a hero by some and villain by others.
Do residents of 'Kosovo' need visas for the UK, Germany? Are most of these flights primarily for diplomats, security personnel?
ReplyDeleteYes, they do need a visa. I wonder if they would attract some Macedonian citizens to fly via PRN? Granted, SKP is well connected to DUS by Skywings and MAT Airways. But I'd expect some more adventurous type people to fly inbound to PRN instead. You just can't trust the online booking at Skywings, if at all in MAT.
ReplyDeleteYes, residents of "Kosovo" need visas. They are either issued the so-called "Kosovo" passports which are not recognized by many countries, or special Serbian passports ("Koordinaciona uprava") which also don't allow visa free travel.
ReplyDeleteThey are the only place in Europe (apart from the CIS countries) that need visas to travel to the EU.
Well I suppose it will be a Crj flying the route.
ReplyDeleteI suppose all these airlines flying down there are doing it for the numerous foreigners as well as for the Albanian diaspora living around Europe.
I guess that the market in the region of Kosovo is very limited as people need an industry to provide them with jobs which in return will provide them with money to travel. Something Kosovo doesn't have at this point.
Please, this is not a political statement it is just a fact, a very well known fact!
JP made a sound economic decision 'trialling' these routes for LH, even at the expense of their own direct routes via LJU. They had the aircraft available, the expertise to put the flights into operation and the desire to grow their business - not too many other exYU airlines can claim that.
ReplyDeleteOU needs to pick up its game re PRN: daily overnight flights to ZAG (thus also saving some cash on Zagreb Airport's notorious fees) would see an increase in pax carried on the airline, and make more sense of the idea of ZAG being a hub...
@ Peter.
ReplyDeleteKosovo residents do need visas to travel to Germany and the UK, but German and UK residents who have family in Kosovo (of which there are many), do not.
Pristina airport is expanding like crazy. It's too bad that they can't attract any traffic from Belgrade (I'd love to take their cheap flight to Geneva), because of the stamp issue.
I simply do not understand all of that expansion of traffic in Pristina..I mean great for them but what is the population that gravitate to that airport
ReplyDeleteLufthansa has been present at PRN for a number of years through their subsidiaries: Swiss, Austrian, Germanwings, Edelweiss and SunExpress. So, I think it's a sign of trust in the long-term sustainability of the route(s) from PRN as well as the levels of safety at the airport that they are starting their operations under Lufthansa. I am yet to find out though whether it will be Lufthansa or Lufthansa CityLine/Regional that will be operating the flights.
ReplyDeleteSo, a big, huge, fat willkommen to Lufthansa and I wish them every success.
All of this comes before Limak - Aeroport de Lyon take over PRN. I hope they will manage to expand further the routes and provide new and better services.
@ the last anonymous.
ReplyDeleteprobably the airport is run properly by internationals, is my guess.
They're attracting LLC and thereby, they're attracting passengers throughout the region. I know a few tourists who flew to Belgrade and out of Pristina.
From Belgrade, it's a minimum of 200 euros to fly return to Geneva. From Pristina (or Budapest), it's as low as 40.
@second anonymous
ReplyDeleteflights to PRN are not really cheaper then to SKP so not many are using PRN at the moment.
but people use SOF an SKG heavily.
Oh my God, LH at PRN. That is just amazing!
ReplyDelete@Visit Kosovo
Due to high demand especially from this destination during summer peak season (getting large number of passengers from Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) I think LH will serve this hop. But who knows, even CL wouldn't be bad at all!
@Visit Kosovo
ReplyDeleteForgot to add!
Do you live in Prishtina?
@ Doot
ReplyDeletePRN is currently run 100% by local people. I don't really want to enter into a non-aviation discussion, but the airport has been doing much better since the airport was handed over to the local authorities over 2 years ago.
The really big and important international contribution to the development of the airport was by an Icelandic team that got the international license for the airport (which required a very significant investment by the Government of Kosovo exceeding 50 million Euros), hence the Icelandic code BKPR.
The airport is used first and foremost by the locals and their families. The number of international (UN, EU, NGO) passengers has significantly decreased as the number of pax has gone up. This is in part due to the political stability since a lot of people used to fly out of SKP or TIA, pre-war BEG. Now, almost all people fly exclusively out of PRN.
Finally, Kosovo has a population of approx. 2 million people and having, say, 1.3m annual pax out of the only international airport is not a lot. Maybe other regional airport underperform. Look at TIA, they've been doing really well too. PRN is served by approx. a dozen regular airlines, that's not a lot. The summer sees more operators, but that's normal.
@ PRN Spotter
ReplyDeleteMy apologies, I did not see your post before I submitted mine.
Yes, I live in Prishtina. In Dardania. My flat is behind Bill Clinton's giant poster overlooking the new motorway flyover near the bus station.
P.S. Have you heard of Illyrian Airways? JATBEGMEL drew my attention to them. Who are these guys? It looks like more bullsh1t to me, a bit like Tafa Air.
@VisitKosovo
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to these "brand new" airlines, I'm not spreading my enthusiasm away anymore!
- Tafa Air (such a frightful name) announced their services with -- they didn't do nothing but frauds!
- In July 2010 LV was supposed to commence their newest destination, PRN but nothing was done -- it's just a "ghost" office in Prishtina (in front of Grand Hotel) that is being screwed up day by day!
- LZ "temporarily" stopped their PRN - TIA services and I really do not know when they are going to resume them!
- I knew a long time ago about Illyrian Airways (a fusion between Italian and Kosovar businessmen) - but I as I told you above, I'm not giving a heck about these "products" anymore!
P.S. Here is my email address
fatmir.jusufi@gmail.com
Për t'mira!
Anonymous, for this part I agree with you …
ReplyDeleteKosovo is not any tourism, or something others. 50% of that is e charter flights thru over tour operators, TO and FROM Pristine Airport, is only the Diasporas worker, mostly concentrate in Europe, and other part of the world. Example from Switzerland to Pristine Airport they are aprox. three flights per day and 70% from them they are Charters. The strongest tour operator is Dardania beast in ZRH and Germany. Under this broker they are e strongest people in aviation industry.
Kosovo is not any tourism, or something others. 50% of that is e charter flights thru over tour operators.
Nice to see Pristina airport developing and yet such a shame that they named it after a scum.
ReplyDeleteAdria flts currently out of PRN to Germany are placed on A319, and pax numbers vary from around 20 to around 80 some flts.
ReplyDeleteCongratulation to Pristina airport. Great job! Greetings Slovenia.
ReplyDeleteAll, or almost all, ex-Yu airports, have similar numbers during last 20years. Maybie it's few hundred thousand passengers per year more or less (for bigger), or some 10-20 % of increase or decrease in traffic (for smaller airports), but generally speaking, nothing dramatic.
ReplyDeleteThe only ex-Yu airport which really saw dramatic change in numbers, and in actual traffic, is Prishtine.
I wish if all others were clever enough to do business as PRN apt does. And I welcome LH coming.
I completely agree with Ex-yu aviation and Jeebusman that this is not political blog and ask again everybody to stick to aviation themes here.
I think thats really great for Pristina. Let's hope that they get Air France in next.
ReplyDelete