The changing face of Belgrade Airport
The first phase of the multi million euro expansion and refurbishment of Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport is nearing its completion. The airport recently expanded its terminal one gates and is finalising expansion work on the first of several terminal two gate areas. Serbia’s busiest airport has also refurbished its departure lounges, business class lounge and waiting areas with the terminal building now sporting a glass façade, the biggest exterior change at the airport since the construction of terminal two in the 1980s. The airport is now preparing to embark on its biggest project - the expansion of terminal two which will be enlarged by the size of four football fields. “We are also planning to build a new terminal which would be used for private aviation”, Velimir Radosavljević, the airport’s managing director says. A total of 9.000 square metres is being refurbished and another 10.000 added.
Radosavljavić noted that Belgrade is trying to attract several airlines to launch flights to the Serbian capital but admits luring new carriers is difficult. “I expect for us to continue to be ahead of our competition and this year handle more passengers than Ljubljana and Zagreb combined. Furthermore, I hope that this year we will surpass Sofia Airport for the first time in many years”, Radosavljević concludes.
And Zagreb, and Zagreb...
ReplyDeleteYou really have complex of Zagreb, don't you?
DeleteSounds like this is gonna be a hot day on Ex-Yu...
DeleteBelgrade can enjoy this for one year, Zag + EU + 2014 = no one will know about Belgrade anymore lol =]
ReplyDeletelol yeah sure, since so many airlines are rushing to launch flights to their kiosk of an airport.
DeleteCroatia is reaching its tourist peak. No one can deny that Croatia is going to have a tourist boom and become a big tourist destination. The problem is that tourists are not returning. If you read almost any international travel site/magazines, tourists say how Croatia is beautiful and nice to visit but when asked if they would visit again the overwhelming majority is "not really". They say they visit once and see everything there is to see. There is nothing that makes them want to return. This si going to bite Croatia in the ass in the future. Of course this will not happen for the next 10-15 years, but after Croatia hits its peak it will see its tourist numbers drop significantly.
DeleteAs for Belgrade, it can never compare to Croatia's coast but it is rising in terms of tourist numbers and what's so incredible is the amount of tourists returning to the city. This will certainly help profile Belgrade into Europe's elite cities like it once was.
Your on Drugs
DeleteIn the begin, the airlines will focus more on tourist places like dub & split, like you can read in the other topic about the Croatian boost.
ReplyDeleteAfter that, zag will lift up to there succes and will get more of it 2, thats why i said 2014/2015.
You are very biased and you are unable to have an objective view. Please try to understand this without bias.
DeleteCroatia has a coast. That's it. Nothing else. It has a coast and that is it. Zagreb is not the coast. The Croatian coast will increase and hit a major boom in the coming years but experts claim that it will stagnate and eventually decrease after 15 years. So for the next 15 years, Croatia will be a major tourist hub but that DOES NOT include Zagreb, just the coast. So the coast will be having a boost, but Zagreb will not. It's not a well-known city and it's not a major base for anything.
I know I will sound biased, but there is no comparison between Belgrade and Zagreb. There just isn't. The EU even acknowledged it. Zagreb can compete with Sofia, Bucharest and Ljubljana. No one is denying that. But it will never join the ranks of Belgrade, Athens, Budapest, or Istanbul unless something terrible happens to 2 of those cities.
And Belgrade competes with Athens, Budapest and Istanbul? Hahahah... eidher you was not in those cities, eidher you are on drugs!
DeleteWhen Zagreb this, when Zagreb that...
ReplyDeleteWe will turn Zagreb into a world hub.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have life, so you need to act like little child and take my nick to write stupid statements which doesn't have nothing with reality?
DeleteOf course that is not my statement, of course no one here think that, of course that shows how miserable you are.
You have just succeeded to cut me into nano-pieces with your sharp words having the speed of light... :(
DeleteI wonder who has no life if you're always so prompt to react to those "childish provocations" (in a matter of minutes), i think your nose is sticked to the screen 24h a day...mine is certainly not so good luck waiting for me to get some badly needed attention and life-excitement :)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteI see you are not that educated so please indulge me. Zagreb will never be a world hub. Croatia is known for its coast, not Zagreb. Belgrade is known for parties, conferences, and more recently business. Belgrade is a huge market that Zagreb is not even close to achieving and it's much cheaper than Zagreb. That being said, the amount of tourists returning to Belgrade are over 70% which is huge. In addition, more tourists come each year and a lot of the funds the city is getting comes from tourism. Zagreb is the "capitol of Croatia" Belgrade is the "capitol of the Balkans". Do you see the difference? Not to mention that Serbia's close relations with the East truly makes it a global city while Zagreb is barely known in the Americas and it's primary relations are with Western Europe. Western Europe vs East and West and North and South. I'm sorry to ruin your dreams but Zagreb is not in the world city group of Athens, Budapest, Belgrade, and Istanbul. Zagreb is in the second-tier group of Bucharest, Sofia, and Ljubljana.
DeleteAlso keep in mind:
1) Belgrade has hosted more international conferences than Zagreb
2) Belgrade Airport has more pax than Zagreb
3) Belgrade's city funds are astronomical compared to Zagreb's
4) Belgrade is rapidly changing and expanding while Zagreb is not
5) Belgrade is more well-known in the world than Zagreb
6) Belgrade was listed as one of the EU's "Future Cities of Europe" (Zagreb was not even mentioned in the Balkan section)
7) Belgrade's tourist numbers are ahead of Zagreb and rising
And Belgrade is the only airport in the whole country...
Delete1) That is absolutely not true!!!!!
Delete2) Belgrade is only airport in Serbia, Croatia has 9 airports. Zagreb has more passengers than Belgrade by number of inhabitants
3) That is absolutely not true. Please take statistical data not dreams. Zagreb has 25% more city funds.
4) Rally? Only change in Belgrade that I saw in last 3 years was amount of rust in trams
5) O yes. Belgrade is so well known. Sure, Belgrade is more known than New York, on same way as it is “Balkan capital”. Just in your dreams.
6)"Future" not present and Balkan is something where Zagreb does not belong.
7) Absolutely not true. Several times I put here official statistic data where you can see that
- Zagreb has some 15% more tourists
- main tourists in Zagreb are Germans, Japanese and Americans, but in Serbia are Bosnians, Croats and Romanians that are coming for cheap drinks and party
Croatia has triple GDP than Serbia and that says all
DeleteJust for the record, Zagreb has spatial terminal for «private» planes for 3 years now!
ReplyDeleteSpatial? Oh, i didn't knew that from Zagreb you had lines to the Moon as well...
DeleteBelgrade already boats a VIP terminal for many years, these are talks about expansion only.
DeleteI actually see more likely DBV or SPU overtaking ZAG than ZAG overtaking BEG...
ReplyDeleteI actually see more likely Losinj and Brac overtaking Rijeka.
DeletePozdrav iz Vantacici
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteGROW UP!!! Arseholes!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAll you balkans goofs sound like idiots arguing over which piece of sh*t has more or less corn in it.
ReplyDeleteYou are ABSOLUTELY right! :)
DeleteWow, everyone here is beyond pathetic and needs to learn much better English before they post something on here. Just by that alone shows your intelligence.
ReplyDeletePs. Google translate isn't the best translation.
Like Postscript is never abbreviated Ps., but PS or P.S.?
DeleteHahaha, 22 comments on Croatian airports and two on grammar.
ReplyDeleteSo, a bit of ontopic here: in the second photo, there's a door with huge A2/A3 signs - these are here just temporarily, right? When secondary security controls are done away with, there won't be a need to cordon off gates this way?
Regarding the whole refurbishment thing, it didn't make the airport a whole lot prettier, but it sure looks cleaner and more up-to-date. Really on par with BUD 2 before SkyCourt was built.
Kudos to BEG for the effort. However, the tiling looks like it was done by a drunk 'majstor' from my village. This kind of buildings require a bit more refined materials and skilled workers who can execute tasks with precision.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the fact that you can see the neon tubes behind (inside) the signs is so last century.
DeleteI have to admit that i like the makeover of Belgrade airport.
ReplyDeleteI even like the tiling.
What for me is important is that it looks clean and
modern.And that does it now!
When i leave/enter the plane i dont want to spend too much time in the airport.
Nothing against good design but sometimes they
waste money on building cathedrals.
Dubrovnik Airport
DeleteSeptember 2011: 205 936
September 2012: 231 418...congratulations!!!
Belgrade airport, September 2012 : 340000 passengers
DeleteHahaha. Every time there is some news about Croatia's airports there seems to be no fighting. Once there is a blog about something Serbian then all hell breaks loose. I know Croats can't stand Serbs being better at them, but face reality and deal with it. My God, you don't see us bitching about Dubrovnik doing good or Zagreb possibly getting another terminal. We just say "Ok. Good for you. I don't care" Croats always need to be better and they never are so to my fellow Serbs, just ignore the nazis and ustase and just keep being better!
ReplyDeleteCCCC
Like I said: "My shit has more corn in it"
Deletewhoopy!
Who cares who's better in the Balkans. You're all part of the same pile of sh*t.
None of your airports have the traffic of the most idle of regional airports in any part of the civilized world.
Amen to that.
Delete@Doot
DeleteI understand where you come from but if that's your attitude man then just don't read the comments or care. If you really don't give a damn then stop writing posts.
And for the record the reason why we're all in the same pile of shit is because we couldn't find a solution to work/be together. Now we're apart and like you said in the same pile of shit. Now that you said what you wanted to say please shut up
And who starts with this? First coment on this post is "And Zagreb, and Zagreb"?.
DeleteWhat's with the obsession of competing and beating Sofia's airport? SOF has lost so many airlines during the last years but it's still maintaining its growth. Furthermore, the Black Sea airports of VAR and BOJ both contribute to the good figures - not to mention PDV (Plovdiv airport) - now served throughout the whole year by Ryanair.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the photos of BEG look good - lets hope the airport reaches the 4 million mark next year.
ZAG is not BEG but this will dramatically change once the country joins the EU. It doesn't matter if the terminal looks ugly or not.
The point is not about the terminal being ugly it's about the market and future interest of carriers. There are people here stating that Zagreb will have more pax than Belgrade once it joins the EU and it will become a world city. I, like many of the realist/sane people on this blog, am trying to convince these people that 1) Zagreb wil never become a world city due to its proximity to Belgrade, Athens, Budapest, Vienna and 2) Just because Croatia is going to join the EU doesn't mean Zagreb will have such a boom of pax. If anything the coastal airports will see major increases but not Zagreb. There are under 20 major conferences held in Zagreb yearly and Belgrade has over 60...and is going to overtake Budapest and Athens shortly. This is all I'm trying to say. Just because Croatia will join the EU doesn't mean it's going to become like Germany overnight.
DeleteEach country has it's Jat and it's share of complaining...
ReplyDeleteA Trans-Atlantic Trip Turns Kafkaesque
New York TimesBy Gary Shteyngart | New York Times – 3 hours ago
You, American Airlines, should no longer be flying across the Atlantic. You do not have the know-how. You do not have the equipment. And your employees have clearly lost interest in the endeavor. Like the country whose name graces the hulls of your flying ships, you are exhausted and shorn of purpose. You need to stop.
Flight 121 from Paris to New York began on a clear autumn afternoon. It ended over 30 hours later. For those of us without miles, it is probably still going.
The initial delay was a mere hour or two. Some were told that our aircraft possessed faulty tires and brakes. Others were told that the crew could not find their way in from Paris. Neither scenario was particularly encouraging.
The aircraft was indeed an interesting one. One of the overhead baggage compartments was held together with masking tape. Halfway across the Atlantic you decided to turn Flight 121 back because your altimeter wasn’t working. Some of us were worried for our safety, but your employees mostly shrugged as if to say, Ah, there goes that altimeter again.
And so you took us to Merrie England for a spell.
At Heathrow, fire trucks met us because we landed “heavy,” i.e., still full of fuel we never got to spend over the Atlantic. At the terminal, a woman in a spiffy red American Airlines blazer was sent to greet us. But the language she spoke — Martian — was not easily understood, versed as we were in Spanish, English, Russian and Urdu.
DeleteUsing her Martian language skills, the American Airlines woman proposed to take us “through the border” at Heathrow, for a night of rest before we resumed our journey the next morning. An apocalyptic scenario: an employee of the world’s worst airline assigned to the world’s worst border crossing at the world’s worst airport.
The Martian took us to one immigration lane, which promptly closed. Then another, with the same result. A third, ditto. Despite her blazer, the Martian was obviously not the ally we had made her out to be. So, ducking under security ropes, knocking some down entirely, we rushed the border with our passports held aloft, proclaiming ourselves the citizens of a fading superpower.
Come morning, you, American Airlines, provided us with a free, daylong tour of Heathrow Airport. By bus. The bus brought us to our new plane, but the doors of the bus would not open. We stood, pressed to one another, in sweltering heat, as the plane was sprayed down for no reason we could discern. It would have been nice, in retrospect, had you sprayed us down, or at least given us something to drink. After an hour, we were told this flight would be canceled because this plane, too, had caught ill. Back to the terminal once more.
It became clear that the older and more feeble of us would be at a disadvantage. A 70-year-old cannot rush past 140 gates to check in for yet another canceled flight with the same brio as a 20-year-old. Some of us started to cry. Not because the journey was never ending, but because you can be told that you are not a human being only so many times.
DeleteAnd then you stopped telling us. The American Airlines representatives we were promised failed to materialize. One passenger told us this was all part of the union’s strategy to destroy the airline. All I know is that with each encounter, I steadily began to feel that your employees were prisoners just like us, armed only with their little walkie-talkies from which issued tinny instructions, lost communiqués from some distant Oz.
“This used to be a great airline,” one old-timer said as we were sweltering to death on the bus. I know you were. And I know you are not alone in failure. An American diplomat based in Moscow tells me he prefers flying Aeroflot to Delta. But Delta is a futuristic paradise of working altimeters and braking brakes when compared with you, dear American Airlines. So what can you do? Empires rise and empires fall. A metaphor you may need to consider closely.
Gary Shteyngart is the author of the novels “Super Sad True Love Story” and “Absurdistan.”
So, Heathrow is "worse" than Belgrade?
DeleteI guess it depends on where you're going.
In terms of immigration queues, it's hard to be worse than LHR - I guess this is all these guys had to worry about.
DeleteFor us, we would be worrying how to enter UK without a visa and getting a real 24-hour tour of the airport, not this lite sleepover version involving a hotel.
how come you can still book flights on Air France Belgrade - Paris for next summer?
ReplyDeleteAir Canada is supposed to be launching a low cost airline serving European destinations that Air Canada currently does not serve, also US and Carribean destinations. It should have 30 A319's and 20 767 aircraft.... Should be launched by the end of next year, and details should be revealed in a few weeks at the earliest..
ReplyDeleteAny possibility that they will launch flights to Belgrade from Toronto or Montreal?
That's a good question, if they are really getting 767s from mainline AC (that would surprise me), then maybe this is possible. That would be fantastic.
DeleteRumour from Skyscrapercity forum says EK is bowing down to persuasion from BEG and will likely start DXB-BEG in September 2013 with an announcement this winter right after new years.
AZAL has reported that it plans to launch US flights (not sure if it's Chicago or New York) via a Baku-Belgrade route.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete