Soon in Belgrade
Qatar Airways will launch services to Belgrade in September this year, connecting the capitals of Qatar and Serbia with an air link for the first time in history. The Qatari national carrier will operate four weekly flights to Belgrade, the airline’s CEO, Akbar Al Baker, said at the ITB Convention in Berlin yesterday. Flights will operate via the Turkish capital Ankara, four times per week with an Airbus A320. It is highly unlikely that the airline will receive commercial rights on the Ankara - Belgrade - Ankara sector. Passengers most likely to use the service are those transiting to far east Asia and Australia.The news comes as the Qatari national carrier plans to launch services to the Croatian capital Zagreb on May 9. The flights to Zagreb will operate on a daily basis via Budapest. The airline does not have local traffic rights on the Budapest - Zagreb - Budapest sector.
From September, Qatar Airways will go into indirect competition with the no frills Fly Dubai which will be operating five weekly nonstop flights from Dubai to Belgrade this coming summer season. Jat Airways, which planned to resume services to Dubai this summer has decided against the move for reasons unknown. However, Jat will have the most competition on its hands. Fly Dubai has failed to attract transit passengers and is being used primarily by point to point travellers. On the other hand, Jat, which continues to enjoy strong cooperation with Emirates, has simply rerouted its passengers transiting to Australia via European cities served by Emirates rather than directly via Dubai since it suspended flights to the city in November 2011.
@exyuaviation
ReplyDelete"Jat, which continues to enjoy strong cooperation with Emirates" -- could you please elaborate more on this "strong" cooperation when Jat does not fly to Dubai any longer?
Nevertheless, their SPA is still in force, though their most convenient connecting point (DXB) does not exist any more. Other European points of connection specified in their agreement are still operated...
Deletespot on MD. via airports such as FRA, VIE, IST, MXP, JAT connects pax to EK destinations. Had on an MXP flight in january 4 serbs connecting from a JAT flight just to BKK.
Deletegreat news, but as belgrade is not connected with ankara, they shoiuld allow to qatar belgrade-ankarqa route. im soooo happy about qatars arrival in belgrade. welcome!!!
ReplyDeleteTK would be most unhappy about that, I presume.
Deletei know that TK is big company and they go fine, but i dont like them... im sorry...
DeleteThey won’t give rights for Ankara – Belgrade because of Turkish Airlines. Whenever there was some question raised about Turkish Airlines operations to BEG, Turkey just threatened they would revoke all flying rights from Jat. Same happened a few months ago with Croatia Airlines.
DeleteLet's see how will Zagreb go first.
ReplyDeleteHello anyone knows for special inaugural (Qatar airways) fares out of Zagreb?
DeleteCan't find nothing yet.
Please post here.
Any info appriciated.
Definately. I think what might hurt the ZAG flights is the stop in BUD. MAybe via SOF would of been the better stop? I think the ZAG flights will be a welcome to the Croatian community in PER considering QR will soon open PER, a month after ZAG opens. QR product is excellent.
DeleteJat, has strong cooperation with Etihad now, FlyDubai and Emirates have agreement about connecting passengers via DXB. 30kg baggage is allowed if you have EK ticket, need to pay extra only for food and drinks on BEG-DXB-BEG route, if you like and which is not expensive. For Jat route is so expensive and you do not have sufficient fleet anymore for that network. Fleet is shrinking so the network does too.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the OT:
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know whats going on with KonTikiSky?
They just announced flights from SKP to 14 destinations !!!
http://macedonianaviation.blogspot.com/2012/03/kon-tiki-sky-to-fly-from-skopje-to-14.html
I really hope its not a hoax :)
Amazing news!!! Finally my weekend hop to SKP is possible, they have morning flights from BSL nicely arranged around weekend (if only second Sunday flight was later in the afternoon...)
DeleteBTW, who are these guys? Apart from Skopje, they seem to be flying double daily domestic flights from Bucharest to 5 Romanian cities and they seem to have more than 1 plane :)
Just few remarks about TK. I flew with them 2 weeks ago FRA/IST/FRA. The plane was fine, food and service on board was nice. However IST aiport is a catastrophy. On the arrival we waited for 15 minutes for a free arrival stand. On departure I almost missed my flight (was there 90mins before dep.) due to long queues at TK check-in and security. Everything was croweded, in the gates no sitting space. When we finally taxied to the runway another 8(!) TK planes were in front of us waiting for take off. 40 mins delay was the result. IST airport simply cannot match TKs expansion and an airlines is only good as its home hub is. If TK wants to be "world class" TAV airport has to be "world class"....
ReplyDeleteI hate Turkish and better to have them out of BEG totally (and JAT out of Istanbul, their 4 flights per week are miserable anyway) and let some other airline start the route, and QR get BEG-ESB rights. Currently BEG-ESB is 250-300$.
ReplyDeleteJat is increasing their flights to Istanbul to daily.
DeleteWrong. Five weekly flights. Check jat.com
DeleteWell he was still wrong with 4 weekly flights so there...
DeleteWhy and who cares?
DeleteI've flown BEG-IST a few times on both JAT and Turkish. It's a 2 hour flight. I couldn't care less as long as a get there for a decent price.
Turkish with their fares are useless in BEG anyway. They're too expensive. I fly frequently and almost never used them. They don't refund tickets even in case of illness/death of passenger. Worse than a lowcost. Pegasus for example should start BEG-IST and BEG-Antalya, for the summer. If Aerosvit was to return to BEG together with QR no destinations in the world would be missed out of BEG with JAT and TK eventually pulling out. Who wants to be blackmailed by the stupid TK anyway. Why should they have the monopoly to Ankara.
ReplyDeleteTK fares are very competitive on most Asian routes, and I've often seen their Premium Economy costing less than some other airlines in ordinary Economy. Plus their hard product is head and shoulders above most EU airlines.
DeleteAll very true, but their Y+ baggage allowance is measly 20kg. Totally unacceptable!
DeleteWell i really don't know where all of you TK-lovers get that info, but since i often fly on Europe-ME/Asia sectors (even South America) i was always able to get 2-3 times cheaper flights with other airlines than TK for the sector. Look at TK prices to Sao Paulo, and compare with QR or EK. I really don't know where to TK has good fares. Or maybe that's because you're always booking round-trips which i almost never don't.
DeleteTK recently had 800e fares in their very comfortable Y+ to entire SE Asia, ex BEG. That's really good, LH charged that much for simple Y at that time. However, baggage remains an issue...
DeleteTurkish is going fine? Look their annual losses, they're in hundreds of millions dollars in minus. TK is a loss-making airline, trying to expand "a la Emirates", unsuccessfully. Turkish mind is too limited and too local to succeed in such a venture. They should just keep running their buses from Otogar, they're good at it and charge you the plane prices anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how people rely on their political affiliations even when they are talking about commercial matter.
DeleteIn 10 years, Turkish became from a regional carrier to a global carrier with a revenue of 7.2 billion US Dollars and they were awarded as the best airline of Europe just last year. In addition to this, if you check their balance sheet carefully, you will see that Turkish is making operational profit and
How can you say such things just because you hate Turkish. We should all leave our political views behind when we are commenting on this website
Great news on QR coming to BEG. Hope they do well and delink it from Ankara within a year of service. I dont see their flights filling as such, QR has a poor Australia network, maybe what would be attractive is SE Asian flights as many Serbs do fly out to places such as SIN and BKK. Would be a welcome to the Serb community in Doha though.
ReplyDeleteJAT on the DXB route lacked a decent product. For such flights JAT must step up dramatically. flyDubai does offer somewhat better product for the route, direct flights on newer B738 a/c, but i dont believe it has filled the void left when JAT stopped flying to DXB. Terminal 2 at DXB is a horrible sight itself. Would be nice for JAT to return to DXB and step up the SPA they have with EK to say codeshare to SYD and MEL only if they offered a decent frequency.
Oh, QR to Belgrade...i feel sorry for Purger, still remember his long paragraph over how ZAG supremacy LOL...
ReplyDeleteI remember when someone wrote paragraphs on how Qatar said they would never launch flights to the balkans. Hahaha :) like i always say you never know what can happen... congrats to Zagreb and Beograd for these upcoming flights, sve naj!:)
ReplyDelete@JATBEGMEL
There is a serbian community in Doha?
yes, but not very large. There are many workers there from the ex-yu region (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia), eg: Qatar Airways crew.
DeleteJat should after the reconstruction lease at least 3 767-2/300 and fly to Us and Australia!!!----------
ReplyDelete----No Arab carrier or turkoman carrier-just Jat:)!
Dear all
ReplyDeleteAs I see most of you has incorrect informations about flydubai and Emirates interline business from Belgrade . Since 11nov 2011. Flydubai had 11500 pax to/from Belgrade , this is officiall info , from this number around 1000 pax transiting only from Belgrade to Emirates destinations beyond Dubai.
Having in mind that real transit business come in summer officiall Emirates statistic is that currently around 3000 tkts are sold in Australia to Belgrade via Dubai with flydubai.
JAT offer in Australia product with two stops , one in Dubai and one in. europe which can not match Emirates and flydubai product.
Flydubai and Emirates has one stop product to all destinations beyond Dubai and this is very diff to match via Europe with two stops specially because of very competetive Emirates fares in combination with flydubai.
Great Anonymous and thanks, where did you get those precise info?
Delete3000 tickets is for what time frame my friend? And this "official" information is from where?
DeleteflyDubai doesnt replace the connections seen before with JAT, and increases the pax waiting times for connecting flights. eg:
JU088 landing in DXB at 6am would connect pax on a direct MEL bound EK406 flight at 10am, or via SIN on EK404 at 9:30am. FZ742 lands at 20:45 and would connect to MEL flight via KUL on EK408 at 3am. Here im still counting 2 stops.
People even before JAT pulled out of DXB were travelling via European hubs onto JAT flights, so nothing has changed there.
To SKP@
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information!!It is really an amazing news-finally SKP will have decent connections to many new destinations, online sales and everything this at reasonable prices.
Congratualtions to KonTiki and MAT!Wish them all the best!
Btw. what kind of cooperation is with ALR?
I assume the B735 will be operated by MAT but the other planes by ALR from Bucharest.
Congrats to QR and BEG. An excellent product in both Business and Economy, and will provide much-needed connections to Asia, Oceania & Africa. But why such low frequency - surely it should be daily like ZAG?
ReplyDeleteThis announcement again highlights QRs desperate need for more 320s, operating like ZAG as tag flights. However, if this is the way to build up new routes without incurring higher setup costs it's a good first step.
It contrasts sharply with EKs predicament in BEG: they have markets they want to serve but a ~250-seat plane is too big. An LCC providing 'connecting' flights not at the same airport does nothing for many business or long-distance travellers, especially those who have come off a 10-14hr flight from Asia/Australia to sit cramped for another 6hrs in a 189-seat flying bus without food/IFE provided.
Dobro vam došli QR.
for EK, the A332 is a small a/c, and are looking at increasing the minimum seating once the A350 comes into its fleet. I believe 2 A330's this year are leaving the EK fleet. EK could use either the A330 or the A343 to BEG, but still, EK is an airline of frequencies and cargo. Their widebodies wouldnt fill on a daily basis and what cargo will be transported via the EK network? Besides that, the A330 fleet will not be refurbished as now seen with the other EK fleet, as they look to slowly phase out the a/c.
DeleteWell, Qatar, welcome, better late than never. I actually think 4 weekly is very good for the start, which they can always extend to daily from Ankara that is daily anyway. No need to start routes with daily flights. Also it is a great factor that the flight connect through Ankara (another muslim country with lots of people going to Gulf/ME) meaning the route will be very solid and constant, unlike the BUD/ZAG service. I only hope they'll receive BEG-ESB rights and break the TK monopoly, i'm so sick of them.
ReplyDeleteWell, one has to say: EK shot themselves in the foot with sending FZ 738 (189 pax) instead of EK 332 (259 pax) to BEG. If FZ can manage 5 weekly flights from BEG with the product and not good connections it offers, then EK sure can manage 3-4 weekly with a 330-200 which has only 70 places more per flights and a business class. They should rethink their strategy but Qatar did the right thing. They are outnumbered at BEG and coming amongst fierce competition but they clearly outmatch everybody. Great strategy, Al Baker has brains.
ReplyDeleteExactly. And if that piece of info that they only get 10% of pax transiting to EK at DXB out of those 189 in B738 is true, than even more so. I would expect EKs Dubai flight to be more about transit than O&D...
DeleteBy the way, their pricing is all wrong. I actually tried to book BEG-PEK via FZ and EK, and they quoted something in the vicinity of 880e. That same service ex Italy is around 480e, but you get EK A380 service on all legs ex FCO, or EK A346 from MXP and VCE. Not to mention that other airlines ex BEG are 300+e cheaper, and that you can't use their website for booking - you need to call EK office in Belgrade. No wonder they don't get transit traffic.
Well, with or without transit, they are getting more and more passengers continuously. And from June,15th Flydubai is adding the fifth weekly flight. Many businessmen and rich people from Belgrade prefer flying directly with them, rather than sitting in the business class spending half a day. Contrary to many expectations and wishes, Flydubai is obviously successful in Belgrade.
DeleteWell, what we're saying is that EK should not have sent their LCC Flydubai to BEG, but their own product instead. And that they should do it sooner rather than later.
DeleteThe same applies to Qatar's coming: better now then later (cause i think Belgrade should have been a priority over SOF, BUH, ZAG or BUD). Surprising they're still not planning KBP or WAW though, only 2 destinations in Europe outside the EU...Moscow, Belgrade and well Zagreb, which is gonna be in EU soon, right?
DeleteI think the problem with EK is that how long will the a/c need to be on ground in BEG? What connections will it make in DXB? Most of the pax ex BEG will be low yielding and i dont think cargo will be a big hit. Serbian products are not available on the UAE market and exports to the UAE isnt significant. I think FZ's role on the BEG market is more of testing it to try to build the O&D market more and to see what yields it can attract. EK co-operate with JAT, and JAT isnt prooving to be very reliable from BEG providing crappy connections to its regional destinations. what is there for EK in BEG?. If JAT did have a solid regional network, maybe the story would be different.
Delete@ anonymous
on my MXP-DXB flight a month or 2 back i had a few serbs from BEG travelling to BKK with EK as they found really cheap fares. It was something like 400 or 500 euros return with taxes and bought over the net. Of course, connected from a JAT flight from BEG.
For QR thoese routes Beg , Zag , Sof to be money makers they need first to fix East Australia (Syd and Bne) there are heaps of traffic there but no one wants to wait 8 hours in Mel or Per for flight connecting. Problem is they have only one wave of departing times to down under while EK has 3 times . According me QR has better product then EK , but I whould fly EK cos is more convenient, plus they are the only airline which you can arrive same day in Europe (most cities ) from down under , and don't forget the 30kg . I heard some gossips that EY is looking on the Balkan too , but with who they will codeshare ? JU , OU ? They have excellent network to Aus too .
ReplyDeleteJust one flight to/from Australia a year would land you at Burgundy level at QRs FF program, which allows 33kg in Y class. Actually, I think one way might do it as well, but don't take my word for it. If you fly in December, points count double (that's unofficial, they have had this promotion for past several years), so you might actually get silver with only one flight. Then you get 38kg plus lounge access and better chances for op-up.
DeleteI guess you can get those "great fares" on TK if you book round-trips - i never don't. I never wanted to pay 50, 100 or 150EUR to change the return date and think about it as having a weight in your mind, especially if you might not return to the same place at all... In such conditions, TK is definitely not the solution for travelers.
ReplyDelete@Vladimir Gojkovic
ReplyDeleteNo need to say "TK product is so well above EU airlines" - The EU airlines are already long-time history in terms of quality standards and no one looks at them anymore. Compared to ME and some Asian carriers, TK is just average, and for that average charges you much more than other, much higher quality companies. I don't hate Turks, i hate the mentality of that company. Whenever possible they try to charge astronomical fares: IST-ESB one-way 300$ LOL. Who knows Turkey should know that mentality doesn't apply only to aviation, that country is a general rip-off.
No IFE on FLydubay? Get your facts straight you jeaulous croat.
ReplyDeleteThey do have limited offer of movies and TV shows, but they charge you 5 euro for each - a sharp contrast to hundreds of movies available free of charge with EKs new IFE. Though, A332s have that obsolete small screen thing...
Deleteback off from the nationalistic crap!
Delete@ anonymous
the A332's as well as the A343's have the really old IFE system. Some B777's have the new widescreen ICE system which is fantastic. the older ICE system is on alot of the B777 ac as well as the A345's.