Belgrade’s time to shine
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport has begun opening its newly expanded and refurbished terminal one gates as the airport completes the first phase of its multi million euro expansion. Gates A1 to A6 have received the new updated look for the first time in decades. Every two gates will now share the same departure lounge while the new glass façade offers complete sound isolation from outside tarmac traffic, the project manager says. All of the gates will be opened for passengers by mid June.
Following the summer rush, work is expected to begin on the upgrade and expansion of the terminal two “C” gates. Furthermore, an additional new floor stretching over 4.900 square metres will be built above the current terminal two building with construction to begin next year so as to separate arriving and departing passengers. Additionally, the Serbia and Montenegro Air Traffic Services Agency has announced that it will finance the construction of a new control tower at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. Construction will begin next year and is set to be completed by 2014.Velimir Radosavljević, the General Manager of Belgrade Airport, said the new upgrades represent only the beginning of the modernisation and expansion of Serbia’s busiest airport. Last Friday he said, “Today we welcomed Croatia Airlines, soon Air One and Qatar Airways will be coming. We have several other airlines lined up but we will announce their names once we are sure of their arrival”.
Together with the terminal one upgrades, Belgrade has also recently refurbished its business class lounge and expanded its terminal two security and passport control areas. Belgrade Airport has the capacity to handle eight million passengers annually and expects to welcome record passenger numbers this year. “With an increased flight offering we will cement our position and continue to record growth at a faster pace than other airports in the region. Our goal is to handle more passengers this year than Zagreb and Ljubljana combined and finally gain the upper hand over Sofia Airport”, Radosavljević said. The price tag of the entire project amounts to 52.9 million euros. It will be financed entirely through the airport’s own funds.Special thanks to Aviokarta.net for the photos featured in this article.
I wonder which airlines we might see in Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteCould Easyjet be launching flights from either Switzerland or the UK?
I wouldn't be surprised if Vueling announced flights from Barcelona in order to fill the void left by Spanair.
I guess they have included TAP since they have announced that they would be launching Belgrade flights by next summer.
Another possibility is Pegasus, and who knows maybe even Rossiya from St. Petersburg.
We should be all ashamed in Zagreb after reading this news.
ReplyDeleteWhy ashamed in Zagreb. Be proud for your buddies in Belgrade. And again don t compare BEG with ZAG. Croata has 4.5 mio population. Serbia is around 8 (correct if I m wrong). Serbia has one main door to Serbia. Croatia has several doors..... so sooner or later you will have 8 mio pax in Belgrade where Zagreb will be still at 4 to 5 mio passengers.....
ReplyDeletewho cares?
Why? zagreb is a lot smaller city than Belgrade..
ReplyDeleteHave you seen our airport?
DeleteWhy dont they put leather seats in the waiting room? where are the new bridges for the new gates?
ReplyDeleteBEG is one of the best airports of so called "warehouse" style
ReplyDeleteWe should not be ashamed of Zagreb,within 3-4 years it will be completely different airport. We can not compete against Beg and i dont care who will this or that in the region. More tourist means more jobs in the region that counts for me!
ReplyDeletein 4 years you will have the most beautiful airport of the region...so u can be proud too !!!
Deletewhen does constructions starts? 2012?
Go Zagreb and go Belgrade !!!!!!!!!
Thanks God for one day with civilized people and normal comments with no nationalistic and "my is bigger" comments. Thanks guys!
DeleteMay growth for Belgrade was 8%, total passengers up from 262,974 to 284,522.
ReplyDeleteTotal passenger growth so far in 2012 is 12%. In 2012 the airport handled 1,156,086 passengers, up from 1,033,627 last year.
Jat's passenger numbers in May were up by 16%, they carried a total of 112,273 passengers. Loadfactor for May stood at 78%.
So far this year Jat carried 440,394 passengers which represents a 9% growth.
Amazing results for Serbian aviation!
Also there is historic cabin occupancy of flights to Belgrade. You can read more here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aviokarta.net/vesti/1177-istorijska-popunjenost-na-letovima-oddo-beograda/
I wonder when this project becomes functional, what impact it might have on air travel in Serbia. After all 1000 engineers is not a small number. Not to mention that a lot of Serbian companies are doing business in Africa and Central Asia.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.beobuild.rs/read.php/548.html
I hope that one day they will build some skyscrapers in Belgrade. up to 250 metres, so 5-6 of them.
Deletebut thanks for the beobuild site, interesting site and yep 1000 engineers is an interesting project, where do they all get from....... i hear that many countries have problems getting skilled employees
I know for a fact that Serbia doesn't which is why it, for example, provides a large number of doctors for Norway and Germany.
DeleteI guess this space might be interesting for some big companies to open up offices. I know Energoprojek would not be interested since they have their new offices in New Belgrade.
Good thing with this is that this kind of business fills the front of the cabin. ;)
I can only hope thay they will refurbish and streamline the facades around, so that there is a continuous look and attach new bridges to the buildings. Otherwise it will look totally awkward like many "nadogradnje" in Belgrade.
ReplyDeletesome good figures from Dalmatia too which most probably will have a positive impact on the flight pax figures too:
ReplyDeleteRecord breaking tourist results for Dubrovnik
The city of Dubrovnik on Croatia's southern Adriatic coast has recorded record breaking tourist results for the first 5 months of the year.
The Dubrovnik Tourist Board has released the official results for tourist arrivals and overnight stays so far this year, and they are significantly greater than last years, reports portal index.hr.
"In the period from January to June in the Dubrovnik area there were 157,214 arrivals and 493,167 overnight stays. It is important to add that in May alone there were 258,887 overnight stays, more than half the total number of overnigh stays for the first 5 months of the year," said director of Dubrovnik Tourist Board Nikolina Vicelic.
In comparison to last year, which was a record year, Dubrovnik had 12 per cent more arrivals, and 17 per cent more overnight stays. Dubrovnik hotels in May had 75 per cent capacity.
Dubrovnik = the rudest people in the Balkans. Most people will only go there once, and never again. Bitter, rude and nasty people in that part of the ex-YU unfortunately.
DeleteDubrovnik is too expensive for the average tourist!
ReplyDeleteNot only for people from Ex Yu but also for foreigners especially when they have children.
If they are rude because someone is from Bosnia,ME or Serbia?
Hmmm..i think they are only friendly to people who spend A LOT of money!
And a lot of the tourists who come to Dubrovnik
spend A LOT of money...very Premium.
That is the sort of tourists Montenegro wanted to bring into their country...thank god that plan failed!
My parents went there for a congress last summer, in their hotel (a 5* premium one) the owner spoke to them and said the following thing:
Delete1. they do not like so many Turks coming now and buying property
2. there is no summer season without the Serbian tourists.
You may say what you want about Serbs but we are loved in every country because we are big spenders and we rarely return home with the money we took with us.
Wait when Croatia is in EU next year...buying properties by foreignerrs will become totally legal then.
DeletePrices will explode...good for some but not all Croatians!
I went through BEG last week and A5 was the only gate I could of seen as the rest were still shut off. It looks much much better compared to the other gates.
ReplyDeleteI think BEG has enough parking possitions for them to continue work on renovating gates A6-A10 throughout the summer, and that if needed they could use the remote stands. With gates A1-A5 and C1-C6, and stands B1-B5(???) i think it should be enough for ac operations at BEG?
BEG lacks proper facilities for pax from toilets (going downstairs to use the toilet is stupid when you have bags), a food court with fast food outlets, more retail shops that is not selling overpriced items from China Town. I think the terminal space is small and limits improvement to current facilities. The flight board was not in function in T2 departures. The LCD screens there are nice, but the flight information on them is too small even for me with excellent eye sight.
@ exyuaviation
A6 wasnt renovated, it was just gates A1-A5.
What do you mean you have to go down to go to the toilet? If you mean that there are no toilets where the two cafes are, that is not true. Toilets are located on the left of the security check, next to that bank.
DeleteCould anyone explain?
ReplyDeleteJAT has same number of planes as CTN, increased number of passengers, increased clf and still behind CTN.
Where is the catch?
Because Croatia Airlines has A320s which have a greater capacity than JU's B733s.
DeleteMost of Jat's fleet is configured wth rougly 8 or 6 Business Class seats and about 120 in Economy.
Also Atr-72s are smaller than Dash-8s, 66 vs. 74 seats.
DeleteThanks guys for your replies
Delete