Work begins on Kraljevo’s Morava Airport terminal
The construction of a 3.000 square metre terminal building in Kraljevo has begun and is set to be completed this October, allowing the airport to open in time for the 2011/2012 winter season. Three local companies have been given the job to construct the building. The price tag for the entire project amounts to 22.2 million Euros, while necessary equipment needed for the control tower and terminal building will be provided by both the Serbia and Montenegro Air Traffic Services Agency and Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport.Local authorities have stated that interest has been shown for flights to commence from Kraljevo to Turkey and Germany once the airport is completed. The Turkish Embassy in Serbia has donated 10 million Euros for the project. Furthermore, there is hope that due to the relative closeness of the Kopaonik Mountain resort and the city of Kragujevac, which is home to the Fiat car maker factory, the airport could secure decent passenger figures. Similar hopes were held for Niš Airport as well, which opened for commercial traffic in 2004, following its reconstruction. However, the airport handled only 23.627 passengers last year and in the first six months of 2011 welcomed 9.847 passengers. Montenegro Airlines, the airport’s sole operator, is subsidised for its flights to the city in Serbia’s east.
Kraljevo is located in central Serbia, 125 kilometres from Belgrade and Priština, 185 kilometres from Sarajevo and 200 kilometres from Skopje. It remains to be seen whether it will manage to attract any airlines or passenger. Kraljevo was rocked by a strong earthquake last year which caused city wide damage. The airport’s opening should coincide with the first anniversary since the earthquake.
125km from BG or 185 from SA would make a lot of sense anywhere else than in Serbia given the state of the roads and public transport infrastructure.
ReplyDelete(Slightly off topic, Novi Sad public transport service starts busses NS-Surčin-NS every two hours. It may just help connect those two despite 80km distance that can take many hours on public transport).
Morons, you do not build an airport and then hope for carriers to come! There is something called market research.
ReplyDeleteThen again I suppose that Serbia is in the same place as Japan and everything is perfect and running well that we can just waste tax payers money on such a retarded project that will sit uselessly there.
I just hope that our government doesn't intend on using this in the upcoming presidential campaign.
I hope it will not end like Nis.
ReplyDeleteIt will end even worse than Nis. They said that the airpor can handle passenger aircraft up to 100 seats however, which Turkish Airline operates such an aircraft? NONE!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand in Germany we have Lufthansa with their regional aircraft but we all know that it's not going to happen. Then there is Air Berlin...yeah, i am sure they are going to fly to Kraljevo before Belgrade.
So who is left?
I think what they are trying to do is to convince themselves that this airport has potential, which is clearly does not have.
OT:
ReplyDeleteAviogenex leased today MD82 from Dubrovnik Airline for their charter flights. I think that is first time Dubrovnik Airline (DBK) in Belgrade.
Will it be just for one day or for longer?
ReplyDeleteOn a side note:
ReplyDeleteBelgrade June statistics are out:
The number of flights remained unchanged when compared to last year which means that airlines had their planes much fuller than before.
Passenger numbers:
+17% in June
258,384 > 301,782
+20% in 2011
1,111,588 > 1,335,409
It's nice that the airport crossed the 300,000 pax/month in June.
What a huge money laundry operation.
ReplyDeleteSerbia = No hope!
ReplyDeleteBEG, 300 000 pax emigrating for no return.
I agree with Nemjee. What is the point of building a regional airport without a regional airline to operate it?
ReplyDelete@Nemjee
ReplyDeleteit says on their website their aircraft movements went up 6% compared to last year, but still it does mean there are more fuller flights as pax increase is 17%! xD
@ last Anonymous
no. people leave Beograd to leave for other countries to live.. and then return as much as they can, usually ever summer, i know by people in cleveland. every year a bunch of serbs move there, and then every summer they wanna go back.
@ last Anonymous
ReplyDeleteplus you did not consider how many tourists are traveling to/ from beograd for the exit festival, and just on vacation + business + diaspora
Could anyone provide BEG webcam link?
ReplyDeleteThanx in advance
@aleksnikolic
ReplyDeleteSo because there are bunch of hippies who camp for 5 days in Serbia, we should build an extra airport for them?
@ 2nd last Anonymous
ReplyDeletethere is a BEG webcam link?
@ last Anonymous
LMAO! hahaha your lack of knowledge about Serbia and BEG is very funny!
Seems that many are unaware, but 300.000 pax is the total number of pax in and out. So the split could be 150K going out, 150K coming in, or any other split.
ReplyDeleteNo change from last year in aircraft movement together with a much higher number of pax means either better capacity utilization (fuller planes) or simply bigger planes.
ReplyDelete@Blessed are the Ignorant
ReplyDeleteno do you read what i am saying. there IS an increase 6% in aircraft movement from last year.
@AleksNikolicUSA
ReplyDeleteOMG... everybody is talking about June figures. June, as the sixth month of the year. There is NO (zero, nothing, nada, zilch) increase in aircraft movement for that month (June, 6th month of the year).
The news are getting boring. Not sure if it's because it's summer time but I miss those new flight announcements. I hope we haven't reached the peak yet and the passengers keep coming in even bigger numbers.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Austrian and LH could offer flights to Vienna and Munich, although it may canibalise their BEG routes.
ReplyDeleteI'll just throw it out there!
The solution ,perhaps is a new airline in Serbia based at Morava Airport, which could feed Turkish and Lufthansa and practicly connect the region with the world. Starting with atr72 or q400 with regular routes to istanbul, Munich, Vienna (or bratislava) , Milan (bergamo). There would be seasonal and charter flights. Participating municipalities could subsidise (inthe beginning) or part own the airline.
Why not give Montenegro Airlines permission as well.
@Nemje
ReplyDeleteApparently, feasibility study conducted by Masinoprojekt Kopring justified construction of the airport. I hope that 'what you pay is what you get' is true in this case given study's price tag.
Good to see that it's not only Serbian taxpayers' money. I see that people mention Nis frequently. Let's not forget that the renovation didn't cost taxpayers a cent. It was funded by donation and used equipment form BEG.
@last Anonymous
Wild idea!
much crazier ideas worked and better ideas failed.
chelica2
Why is there a minimal amount of Macedonian aviation news on this site? It seems very non-Macedonian orientated to say at the least.
ReplyDeleteGood news for SKP:
Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines starting 15AUG11 is launching service to Skopje in Macedonia, offering 2 weekly Izmir – Skopje and 3 weekly Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen – Skopje route.
Schedule:
Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen – Skopje eff 16AUG11
PC711 SAW1515 – 1545SKP 738 247
PC712 SKP1625 – 1850SAW 738 247
Izmir – Skopje
PC2735 ADB1400 – 1420SKP 319 5
PC2735 ADB1440 – 1500SKP 738 1
PC2736 SKP1500 – 1715ADB 319 5
PC2736 SKP1540 – 1755ADB 738 1
Congrats Kraljevo! Well done guys, and do not pay atention to those from Belgrade which only like to hear how many thousand BEG has last month and which is the new route from their airport. Dont you remember that ¨Pristina¨was also non profitable before, now has almost half of what BEG have.. so go ahead and congratulation for the new airport!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteI hope that you are joking about the Lufthansa/Austrian possibility in Kraljevo.
Yes, Lufthansa is going to launch Kraljevo before Pristina or Sarajevo! And Austrian is really willing to risk their Belgrade route which will face even more competition from the winter season when Niki adds new flights.
As for this, let's wait and see what happens however I am not going to hold my breath. Nis is the best example which we can use every time to show that there is no need for any airports in Serbia besides Belgrade AT THIS POINT. At a later stage when industry develops and when the need and the market are created we might see more airlines adding flights. If Nis was attractive Wind Jet would have survived.
Actually, what I would love is that Kraljevo gets (if it can) some destinations like for example to SAW, but of course there is a problem of regulations between serbia and turkey, I believe that we dont have government agreement that allows free competition on serbia-turkey routes. I have used SAW couple of times, and it is a great connection point for AirArabia and flyDubai, but the shitty thing is that i have always flown BEG-IST, and then had to change two shuttle buses....
ReplyDeleteSo probably my next flying option would be SKP(or SOF) which ever is closer to SAW... CONGRATS TO SKP btw:))
In my opinion Kraljevo is better for passengers from the north (i am strictly talking from belgrader's or vojvodina perspective) than Niš, since the price of getting to Kraljevo from BG is by far cheaper then to Niš (since there is no "overpriced" motorway). :)
@Blessed are the ignorant
ReplyDeleteYES, JUNE... if ur comparing THIS June to LAST YEAR June, June 2010 -there is increase of 6% aircraft movement, that accommodates the 17% PAX increase!
Aleks,
ReplyDeleteNo, 6% is 2010 vs 2011.
June 2010 vs June 2011 is the same.
4.094 4.093 100
actually in 2011 we had only one extra landing when compared to 2010 ;)
Oh, I did not know thats how they put it, Im still confused though it said 6%, but wow idk im real confused.
ReplyDeleteHaha well that is good:)
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ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know did something happen to Aviogenex's b737? Since I see today that all the flights are MD82 and there are no 737-200 (not even for JAT)... Perhaps there was a problem...
ReplyDeleteGuys,no ofense but, could we trust BEG June numbers, at all?
ReplyDeleteMany statistic data coming from Serbia are at least, doubtful. Ex. GDP reported to IMF recently, etc.
Last anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThey are true because a lot of airline have used bigger capacity aircraft to Belgrade.
For example, Spanair uses their A321 quite often to Belgrade, Air France upgraded their route to an A319, Alitalia tends to send their A321 from time to time not to mention that the route is opearted mostly by A320s now.
Plus, let's not forget the Turkish charter flights on Pegasus and Atlasjet where both airlines use high capacity aircraft (A321; B737-800).