Skopje Airport anticipates US/Canada flights
The Macedonian Civil Aviation Agency has announced that two airlines, one from the United States and the other from Canada, are interested in launching transatlantic flights to Skopje. According to the Agency, the names of the two airlines cannot be revealed at this moment, although more information should be available from September when Macedonia and Canada sign a bilateral air agreement. The two countries are set to sign the agreement in early September. Macedonia and the United States have already signed an Open Skies Agreement, which came into effect last Friday. The Open Skies Agreement allows unrestricted access by the airlines of each side to fly to, from and beyond the other’s territory, without restriction on how often carriers fly, the kind of aircraft they use and the prices they charge.
Dejan Mojsovski, the head of the Macedonian Civil Aviation Agency says, “Two companies have shown interest and they are not classic low budget airlines but offer a mixed product. Their initial interest is a good indicator for us”. Macedonia plans to promote Skopje Airport’s potential for transatlantic flights at the ICAO General Assembly meeting in Montreal in October. Furthermore, the operator of Skopje Airport, TAV, as well as the Macedonian government will carry out a feasibility study on the potential of transatlantic flights to the Macedonian capital. Pristina was the last city in the former Yugoslavia to have direct flights to the United States, back in 2006.
Meanwhile, Macedonia’s two international airports continue to record strong passenger figures. In June, the two handled a combined total of 107.178 passengers, making it their busiest month so far this year. Compared to June of 2012, Skopje and Ohrid recorded growth of 22%. In the first half of the year, the two airports welcomed 472.536 travellers through their doors, up 17%. Tour operator, Air Prishtina, has announced it is organising flights from Skopje to Berlin to be operated by Germania. The service will launch on December 20 and is set to run until the start of the 2014 summer season. Further flight details are available here.
Well, I don´t believe that flights to Americas will be lunched.
ReplyDeleteSkopje has so much more to offer than Belgrade and Zagreb and Ljubljana... (please excuse my irony)... and soon it will continue with the ordinary "diaspora and connection possibilities"-drivel...
DeleteMacedonian efforts will eventually bear fruit and some of the mentioned companies will lunch their flights to SKP. Only I'm thinking what could be the possible frequency for these flights?
Delete5x daily at least
DeleteHaters gonna hate.
Deletecharters during summer
Delete@doot we know about your intelligence already
Yeah baby, soon flights from SKP to Sydney, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Sao Paolo, New York, Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco.
DeleteDuring 2014, the new MAT will also lunch flights to Rio de Janeiro, second daily flight to New York and introduce new routes to India, West Africa and Central Asia considering lunching flights to Almaty, Tashkent, Bishkek, Astana and Novosibirsk.
OCIGLEDNO SANJATI NIJE ZABRANJENO! =)
Seljak .....
DeleteIt cost nothing to 'show interest'.
ReplyDeleteEspecial if it is noname company.
DeleteBy the way let me announce that I will open company to fly in exYU region with 22 A380, 111 A320 and 200 Q400. Upssss... sorry that project has name dalmatian.hr. Maybe they will fly that USA-SKP and Canada-SKP route.
Hello Haters, hope u having a good day. Seljaci
ReplyDelete+1
Deletedefine "hater"
Deletebecause if it's "someone who points out that something I wish were true is ridiculous", I think you might be wrong on your definition
plus, I think you mean to say "seljacine"
DeleteNo, сељаци, is fine as well.
DeleteTHe only Canadian airlines that could be involved is Air Transat, Sun Wing and Air Canada's low cost start up called Air Canada Rouge which started operations July 1 to compete with Air Transat on transatlantic leisure travel.
ReplyDeleteOut of three I think the one involved (if this is at all true to begin with) would most likely be Sun Wing. But similar to the charters to BEG and ZAG in the past this might be once a week charter during summer months. And with limited connections and past history of these flights it's going to take a while for me to select it for my travels.
I guess that this is a marketing gag from TAV, the turkish company that owns and runs Skopje Airport. If Air Canada Rouge would start any flights to the Balkans, most probably ZAG and BEG will be the first to be served. Any charters by Americans like Air Transat could also be seen rather in DBV or LJU then SKP.
ReplyDeleteThey will fly into Athens so they already have flights to the Balkans. The next one would be Istanbul and then the Ex-Yu bunch.
DeleteGuys how is possible to find out how many people traveled between BEG and GYD last year?
ReplyDeleteI see that AZAL recieves E190s. Is it possible for that jet to reach Belgrade?
An e-jet should be able to make that distance fine.
ReplyDeleteLMAO Skopje considered for such flights and Belgrade and Zagreb are not. What a joke.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing we need now is Air Arabia opening flights to Osijek....
ReplyDeleteOT:
ReplyDeleteAnd here are the official results for SIA - Sarajevo International Airport for June:
72.949 passengers.
Change compared with June 2012: + 16,74 %
So far, SIA had 303.820 passengers in the first half of the year.
Bigger growth is expected in august, when Kuwait Airways starts the flights between Sarajevo and Kuwait.
Furthermore, almost all airlines use bigger planes to Sarajevo then last year:
Lufthansa: A320 instead of ERJ195
Jat: 737-300 instead of ATR72
Turkish: 737-800 and A321
Adria: CRJ9 instead of CRj2
Also Croatia Airlines operates some flights saturdays with their A319.
For 2013, Sarajevo Airport expects 670.000 - 700.000 passengers.
According to the rumors, in 2014 SIA expects new routes opened by
Alitalia, Wizz Air and B&H Airlines.
Alitalia will fly from Sarajevo to Rome-Fiumicino, B&H Airlines will reopen a route to Amsterdam and/or Frankfurt and Wizz Air is expected to set an plane at SIA flying to Dortmund, Memmingen, Milan, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Malmö and Stockholm.
In 2015, SIA expects 900.000 - 1.000.000 passengers.
I've heard the Frankfurt rumours as well, AMS is not on the list for now (slot-wise)
DeleteThere is a rumour about Aeroflot 3x/week? But I'm not so sure about that one..
Where did you get the Wizz Air info if I may ask?
Pozz,
Bo
Great results for our SJJ! I am so proud! :)
DeleteThere is something that tells me that there might be something out of this...
ReplyDeleteThis is because almost everything that we heard about Skopje became true in the past years...
They got a new terminal, their numbers are getting higher... they got Wizzair and their base there... fly dubai... they got a lots of destinations that at first thought seemed unreal, unexpected... and there were a lots of surprises....
Anyways... I don't say that this about US/Canada flights must be real and true... But experience tells us that most about Skopje is surprisingly true... Even if it is the government giving money to airlines to fly from skopje to anywhere else... :D :P :)
I heard NASA is launching direct daily orbital flights from JFK to BEG with their space shuttle. I heard its pretty rad.
DeleteIs anything wrong about what I just said.
DeleteI just expressed the observation of things going on with Skopje, that i personally did during the recent years... I just gave my opinion on the possibility of those US/Canada flights to Skopje to become reality, but also considering the previous achievements that SKP had, at the same time...
Peace :)
Sorry, not directed to you, I meant for the general thread. Clicked the wrong "Reply" button.
DeleteBelgrade has connection to JFK for many years.While Skoplje might have maybe in 50 y.
DeleteATM, I would say SKP is also feeding on PRN's demand, which is considerable, but PRN is obviously failing to attract either major airlines, or provide decent connections, or offer some low cost product. Given the distance between the two, I would say SKP is now actually serving this market of around 4 million people, very prone to travel, although in deep discount Y only. This is actually more than ZAG, and closing to BEG.
DeleteThe question is, what happens to SKP when PRN starts performing, and is it going to, or does TAV have different agenda there?
Well,this boost that SKP get is no natural growth.
ReplyDeleteMost of it is not possible without heavy subsidizing.
Also Turks swim in money they borrowed in Saudia and Qatar...
But this money will not flow forever.
LOL Einstein!
DeleteFirst of all, good luck to Skopje - and to creative ways of promotion aviation in a country.
ReplyDeleteAs for the rest, I distinctly remember Etihad taking over Jat being dismissed by many on this forum as a story that was too good to be true. So may this be another one...
That was "promoting aviation in a country," sorry!
DeleteNext connection SKP-Miami ,SKP-LA,so all 300 Macedonians in those cities will finally have direct fights.C'mon let's be realistic.
ReplyDeleteNo next route is KVO-LAX and INI-JFK, so all stupid serbs will have opportunity to fly
DeleteThis thread is so full of condescending bigotry, it makes me sick. Iskompleksirani mali ljudi, jadno.
ReplyDeleteI'm all the more glad some more great news related to Skopje are coming in a few weeks time. I'll be there to remind you.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Delete