Germanwings to suspend Cologne - Belgrade flights
The low cost Germanwings will be suspending services from Cologne to Belgrade from January 29. The airline will keep its presence at the airport with flights to Stuttgart. During this winter season, flights between Cologne and Belgrade were operated three times per week. Germanwings was the first low cost airline to enter the Serbian market several years ago. Its Stuttgart service has had success, taking away passengers from Jat Airways and forcing the Serbian national carrier to significantly reduce prices on the route in order to compete. The reason behind the Cologne suspension is unknown. Germany is one of the biggest markets being served out of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport with flights to seven cities, now that Cologne will be suspended (Berlin [Jat], Munich [Lufthansa], Memmingen [Wizz Air], Stuttgart [Jat/Germanwings], Frankfurt [Jat/Lufthansa], Dusseldorf [Jat] and Dortmund [Wizz Air]).Meanwhile, the airport’s management announced that it has reduced fees for airlines using airport facilities, the third time it has done so within a year. “This way we will ensure even greater competition amongst airlines”, Velimir Radosavljević, the airport’s CEO, says. He adds that in 2012 the airport will see new arrivals with Qatar Airways planning to commence flights from Doha and Astra Airlines from Thessaloniki in Greece. This summer, Norwegian Air Shuttle will introduce its third destination to Belgrade, from Copenhagen, Croatia Airlines will resume its seasonal flights to Dubrovnik while Jat has scheduled to launch six new routes (Dubai, Tripoli, Malta, London Gatwick, Split and Pula) and resume seasonal flights to Dubrovnik and Ohrid.
does anyone know whether its a route cut or only suspension?
ReplyDeleteThis comes across as quite a surprise. I've flown the route to Cologne/Bonn several times in the past 12 months, in various seasons, and not once have I seen a load factor lower than 85-90%.
ReplyDeleteWell Lufthansa was also badly hit by increased competition on the market.
ReplyDeleteLot entered the market, Malev, Jat signed a deal with KLM...
All this had given them a hard blow and took away a significant number of passengers.
Though they still remain as an important player in the market this has lead them to reduce capacity to Belgrade.
As for Germanwings, they received fierce competition from Wizz Air's service to Dortmund which is not far from Cologne-Bonn.
Also, Wizz Air is also much more known in Serbia than Germanwings.
It's not the Cologne/Bonn route that's the problem, but the international connections it made available. For example, the low-cost variant to Zurich is now completely lost.
ReplyDeleteWherever there’s free market and competition the market regulates itself. Thus, sometimes there has to be route cutting. Germanwings from Belgrade was endured by Wizz Air Dortmund and Jat Airways Dusseldorf flights (which is daily during summer season) while Eindhoven is not that far away.
ReplyDeleteOT:
ReplyDeleteDubrovnik Airport just published its 2011 figures:
1.349.501 pax
How is Pristine doing? Who is third in exYU?
Jat Airways will finally fix its mileage programme... long overdue but oh well.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aviokarta.net/vesti/886-jat-airways-pokrece-novi-nagradni-program/
Astra airlines will be a nice new addition ay? Will they codeshare with JAT? JAT would have had more flights to Dubai if they timed the flights for passengers from region, especially Sarajevo to go on the flights, but its all good. I heard the other day QATAR is not sure whether they are launching Beograd, but they are neither 100% yet for Zagreb until they put out the flight information.... SVE NAJBOLJE SVIMA ... :)
ReplyDeleteit looks to me that Qatar will no launch BEG!
ReplyDeletewhat do you think?
Information from one pilot in Qatar: they will launch ZAG (not in February but in middle of year) and they will not launch BEG.
ReplyDeleteWonderful, galley rumors are the last thing we should take seriously
ReplyDeleteQatar probably see's FlyDubai is trying to take over the market and do not want to compete and have both passengers have low number of pax... but I hear Qatar has higher quality? probably for higher prices too, which serbs cannot afford and diaspora appreciates cheaper....
ReplyDeleteThey are probably trying Zagreb because of diaspora in Australia and tourists if they code share w OU for Zadar, Dubrovnik, Split, Pula, but just Zagreb may be enough. SVE NAJ
I don't think JAT will appreciate ASTRA competition.lol;)
Great. with germanwings you can buy ticket only if u have credit card-visa or diners.. they do not accept debit cards. the second, they have never been low coster. the cheapest beg-cgn RT ticket with all taxes usually was 100 eur, which is not LOW at all...
ReplyDeleteWell,why should Qatar Airways
ReplyDeletefly to Belgrade when its competitor Flydubai with its little aircraft can not fill their plane...
40% loadfactor is really miserable.
I have flown CGNBEG and there have been 94 pax.
ReplyDelete