Evacuees unite with their families as all flights to Tunisia are suspended
Services to Tunisia have been suspended until further notice from the only EX-YU airport which offered regular flights to the North African country – Belgrade. Jat Airways operated its last service to the country last week when it chartered two special flights from Belgrade to rescue stranded tourists following the violent overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who has ruled Tunisia for the past 23 years. The special service saw Jat aircraft land in both the capital Tunis and the city of Monastir. Some 200 Serbian tourists and a dozen Macedonian holiday makers were flown back to Belgrade, while Serbian construction workers and embassy employees were also returned home following an outbreak of violence in the normally peaceful and stable country. Tunisair, which operates flights from Tunis to Belgrade, has also suspended the service until further notice while all tour operators in the EX-YU region have shelved sales of Tunisian holiday packages.
Tunisia is an extremely popular holiday destination for Serbs and lately Macedonians, Croats, Bosnians and Slovenians. During the 2010 summer season flights to Tunisia were operated not only from Serbia but from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia as well. During the winter, regular weekly flights operate out of Belgrade to Tunis and Monastir.
Tunisia is an extremely popular holiday destination for Serbs and lately Macedonians, Croats, Bosnians and Slovenians. During the 2010 summer season flights to Tunisia were operated not only from Serbia but from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia as well. During the winter, regular weekly flights operate out of Belgrade to Tunis and Monastir.
Within the next 48 hours Jat will charter a special flight to either Hurghada or Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt to evacuate 120 Serbian tourists as violent political demonstrations hit the second most populous African nation, the Serbian diplomatic mission in Egypt told state media yesterday. There are no regular flights between any EX-YU country and Egypt although Jat operates all year round charter flights and numerous Egyptian airlines operate flights to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Serbia during the summer.
Meanwhile, normality has returned to Podgorica Airport, which was closed due to heavy snowfall earlier in the week. Some 1.500 passengers were stranded at Montenegro’s hub as only Jat’s flight to Belgrade left the airport and Montenegro Airlines’ incoming flights from Priština, Skopje and Niš were able to land. Over the past week, Sarajevo Airport has been closed several times due to thick fog while Skopje was also forced to close its doors earlier in the month due to poor weather conditions.
U slucaju rata bezite avionima JAT-a hahaha :D
ReplyDeleteTo the previous Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteSorry, two mistakes!
- Boro's original proverb mentioned "civil" war explicitly;
- It was AGX (YU-ANP) which collected the last PAX groups from MIR (my girlfriend and I were onboard one of the above-mentioned flights) and the same A/C will be chartered by Kontiki, as far as I know.
lol to the first anonymous
ReplyDeleteAlso LOL to the first anonymous. Hahahaha kralju. :)
ReplyDeleteI was in Tunisia this summer and there were so many people from ex-yu. Our tour guide was some girl named Pamela from Croatia :D I was really surprised with the number of Slovenians, also heaps of people from Bosnia, Croatia and Macedonia.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 1: that one never gets old :D I wonder where the idol airline for all Serbs, Wizz Air, was. Why didn’t they charter a flight?
Anonymous 2: How does the old YU-ANP look now? The last time I flew with them must have been 20 years ago. I heard they still have the Aviogenex cabin crew operating on the aircraft.
@ 1:44 PM anonymous:
ReplyDeletebecause wizz still doesn't have a plane based at BEG.
off-topic: whats this talk about wizz having low CLFs on most routes? are there any official information?
"During the 2010 summer season flights to Tunisia were operated not only from Serbia but from Croatia and Slovenia as well"
ReplyDeleteAlso from Bosnia. Both Tunisair and Nouvelair.
"...Jat operates all year round charter flights and numerous Egyptian airlines operate flights to Croatia and Serbia during the summer."
Also to Bosnia. JA to Hurghada and Lotus Air to Sharm and Hurghada
^ Ammended
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of fact, AGX was scheduled to operate all flights from Tunisia in order to evacuate Serbian citizens but politics came between: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (headed by the same party as JU) demanded JU to operate those flights. JU was forced then to lease AGX to operate on LHR and SVO flights.
ReplyDeleteSince those are Kontiki tourists in Egypt and they cooperate only with AGX I would not be surprised if JU is again demanded to operate those flights.
Everything's political!!!
To Anonymous #6:
ReplyDelete"Zadar" still looks good inside with a combination of blue and red (middle) textile-covered seats. I think that only the engines smoked a bit more and were a bit louder than on JU 733s.
The cabin crew is still from AGX in own uniforms, but catering was Jat's.