B&H cancels expansion and temporarily suspends Amsterdam and Copenhagen
B&H Airlines has cancelled its planned new flights to Skopje, Dusseldorf and Vienna which were due to be launched during the 2012 summer season. Ticket sales were first suspended in early February and flights have now been completely removed from global reservation systems. Services to the Macedonian and Austrian capitals were to be inaugurated on March 25 with five weekly flights each. B&H suspended flights to Vienna back in May 2011 due to poor passenger figures. Austrian will operate two daily flights from Vienna to Sarajevo this summer season. Services to Dusseldorf were planned to launch on June 2 twice per week.Since yesterday, B&H Airlines has begun cancelling flights to Amsterdam. All flights will be temporarily suspended from March 4 until early April. Furthermore, the Bosnian national carrier will see cancelations on its flights to Istanbul throughout February and March, Copenhagen has been temporarily suspended until April (for a second time this winter season) while Zurich will operate only once per week until the start of the summer season.
The cancellation of planned flights to Skopje, Dusseldorf and Vienna won’t affect the airline’s seasonal services to Gothenburg and Stockholm set to launch this June.
OK, so who the hell can take this airline seriously....? Just shut it down and let serious actors come into business!
ReplyDeleteI do not think there is a lack of skilled people to run the airline, I think there is rather a lack of general market to sustain a national carrier in Sarajevo.
ReplyDeleteA B&H employee fag detected!
DeleteIf randomly starting and shutting off routes, not understanding concept of codeshares, timing, transfer pax and having usable web site is sign of high competence than I completely agree with you...
DeleteIf they are temporarily suspending CPH and cutting down on IST and ZRH it shows that they probably have really bad loads and that its cheaper for them to have their aircraft on the ground rather than in the air.
ReplyDeleteNothing is cancelled...
ReplyDeleteI’ve just tried booking a ticket to Skopje and it doesn’t allow me. Checked Amadeus then and shows there are no flights. The quickest way to get there is via Vienna.
DeleteI know the main source of this article. The information there has never been presented as a fact, just as an interpretation of the current situation. ExYu I hope you used other sources than SCC as well
ReplyDeleteIt's incredible to watch when a 'big fish' airline eats a 'small fish' which is in bad way.
ReplyDeleteSome (like everyone's favourite on this forum, LH) put their own management team in, and turn the place around (look at LX - bankrupt to turning one of the highest profits in Europe in less than a decade). And then there are some (TK) which just left the incompetent management in place (JA) - and this is the result: wrong fleet, wrong destinations, wrong prices, and no clue how to do proper marketing or forward planning. The airline has been the joke of exYU aviation for years, this is just another step along that road, irrespective of getting 'experts' in to get it back on track.
There are niche markets to exploit and profits to be made from BiH, even with its current political problems and stagnant economy.
poor for macedonia & skopje but b&h is canceling everything?!?!?
ReplyDeleteB&H cancelled yesterday’s flights to AMS and IST. What’s going on? :(
ReplyDeleteApparently they have temporarily cancelled these flights to Vienna, Skopje and Dusseldorf. They will probably start somewhere midsummer but this being B&H I wouldn’t be surprised if they cancel them then.
ReplyDeleteEveryone knows Turkish’s goal is to run BH into the ground, blame the government and then get a 100% ownership share. They are very unhappy that the Federation is unwilling to sell its half.
ReplyDeleteBut that is simply impossible due to ECAA agreement. ECAA airlines (which BH is) must not be majority owned or effectively controlled by non-ECAA capital (Turkey does not participate in ECAA, neither it wishes so because it would expose its market to foreign airlines penetration).
DeleteTherefore, Turkish capital cannot have a majority stake in BH Airlines...
Turkish capital could be 100% or majority stake; there is no legal base to prevent this.
DeleteAccording to ECAA, it is not regulated that foreign ownership is not possible but that airline would not benefit from liberalised market when BiH closes First phase or second (completely liberalised ECAA market), if any of BiH AOC holders is owned by majority of non-BH capital. (Operating License)
But BiH will rather become full member EU then fulfil all requirements from EU regulations (e.g. Croatia case) and ECAA is still not ratified by all EU Member States, so it is still not in force for EU, which is paradox, and more or less not effective agreement really for ECAA signatories.
So, to conclude, Turkish capital can have 50% plus 1 share or 100%, legally speaking, no problem for that. They might not be able to have benefit from ECAA, but today BiH, neither Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro or UNMIK has no benefit in market for their airlines, the truth is on opposite side / domestic AOC have unlimited competition from disproportional market of EU without real access to the same on EU market. Sad but truth.
Have to disagree about ownership remark!
Delete(1) B&H national law most probably mandates 50%+ domestic ownership and control, as is the case with most other countries. In an event that B&H removes that clause bilateral and horizontal agreement partner countries (and EU as a whole) can deny B&H carriers right to land as they have that option (which would EU most certainly do).
(2) EU carriers have to bee 50%+ EU owned and controlled or they will be denied AOC.
(3) Once B&H joins EU it will have to be EU owned (which will happen at some far point in future and therefore BH Airlines would loose AOC if non-EU (e.g. Turkish) owned at that point).
(4) True that ECAA is still not in force (Germany and Greece that I recall taking the blame), however that doesn't change things much. It will come into force soon probably, and till the end of 2nd phase implementation B&H will have to adopt the entire EU air traffic acquis, including ownership contraints, only reading that airlines would have to be 50%+ ECAA owned.
Also, ECAA is not an "optional bonus rights" agreement, it is stated that it supersedes all bilateral or horizontal agreements with EU states and the EU as a whole, so it has to be complied with or EU can deny traffic rights to B&H carriers.
Have to agree that effectively this agreement (as well as EU integration) basically ultimately means an end to independent existence of all regional airlines.
When I read the news in this website, I can see that the source is almost always based on concrete information but when I read the comments, I feel like there are a lot of commenters here who have no understanding of aviation. What could Turkish gain from bankrupting this company while it is public information that they have been participating in capital increase to a loss generating company. And especially after publicly announcing that they are interested in buying Polish carrier; LOT. They did not need to pay millions of Euro and buy 49% of the shares if they wanted the company run down. B&H Airlines unfortunately has never had a sustainable business model and I doubt that it will ever.
ReplyDeleteExcellent comment!
DeleteThere are far too many commentators who subscribe to various "conspiracy" theories. It is always somebody else fault.
The truth is that B&H Airlines have extremely incompetent management which does not understand aviotion basics - code share agreements, marketing, transfers, fleet utilisation....
I would not completely agree with Zrak. Let us be realistic now. Who would code share with an airline that is operating with 2 TPs and rarely with a Jet. It seems TK bought the shares just out of courtesy and made CS with for IST but I cant really imagine another airline to CS with BHA given the conditions of the TPs. I have flown to several destinations with B&H Airlines and the internal condition of TPs are really not OK. And this decision of either changing or renovating the TPs lies on the shoulders of the owners not on the management. I think the management is doing an OK job by taking necessary action when necessary such as chopping flights. Once again, the market is too small to have a national carrier.
DeleteIt is fine to cut routes BUT it is this same management that actually decided to start these routes 2 months ago. By announcing and then cutting routes they are just causing confusion and eroding whatever of the trust the airline had.
DeleteThere are smaller airlines than B&H having code-shares agreements so the size of the airline shouldn't be a problem.
Oh man what are the sources of these informations? EX YU AVIATIO, maybe you could get the relevant information directly from the airline rather than ''guessing'' what's going on...this blog has often no explanation and needed references for published articles. Totally amateur...
ReplyDeleteI’m a travel agent can confirm that these flights have all disappeared. Also big reductions at the end of FEB and throughout MAR on all flights including IST.
DeleteIts evident that BiH carrier is dropping new proposed destinations. At least, this is what we see on the CRSs and chopping flights within February and especially March, probably dues to low loads.
ReplyDeleteOperating in such a shallow and small market, I am even surprised how they survived this long. And yet, the airport is dominated by Star Alliance carriers who almost leave no place for the B&H carrier.
Someone on B&Hs official Facebook page asked about the cancellations more than 24hrs ago and the company didn’t answer anything (they usually answer within an hour). That’s as much confirmation I need. Also looking at their Facebook page I notice lots of people asking about the status of their flights and B&H answering how their flight has been cancelled or flight times changed and that they should contact so and so. It is usually followed by people answering “Nobody informed us”. So much for a national carrier.
ReplyDeleteI really don't understand this airline. They always seem to be introducing flights and then canceling them as to show the public that they are doing something. This is a poor way of trying to gain passengers to fly the airline let alone the public having any type of confidence . The best thing would be to cease operations completely.
ReplyDeleteFlights and destinations are not cancelled, they are object of re-scheduling...
ReplyDeleteGood to hear :), would you mind sharing your source
DeleteGood to hear :), would you mind sharing your source?
ReplyDeleteYou can't run a legacy like a LCC, full stop. In other words, you would rather maintain 14x to Istanbul, 14x to Frankfurt, rather than 2x CPH, 2x GOT or whatnot.
ReplyDeleteThe point is, don't try to serve the Diaspora market if you have the cost structure of a legacy carrier. I know... I know... There's too much pride for any Balkan to swallow - "WHAT ABOUT MY COMPATRIOTS IN DUSSELDORF? WHAT ABOUT MY BRATHERS IN SKOPJE?"
Turning an airline around 101:
1) Realise your mission ("we are just a feeder")
2) Concentrate your resource ("kick ass solid schedule to FRA, year round")
3) Interline with the big guys
DONE.
Arturo is spot on.
ReplyDeleteExcept when he says "Done." The "Done" threshold is the level that balkan carriers foolishly try to pass without doing Arturo's first three steps. After carriers hypothetically realize a regional-feeder-frequency structure and lower costs and eliminate old fleets, then they can go on to whatever expansion outside of Europe they wish, cause by then they transport more than just domestic pax, but connecting pax as well