Air Serbia and Adria see double digit growth in January
Air Serbia and Adria Airways have recorded a strong start to 2014 with both national carriers seeing their passenger numbers surge in the first month of the year. In January, Air Serbia welcomed 127.432 passengers on board its aircraft, an impressive increase of 63.5% compared to the same month last year. January 2013 marked Jat Airways’ final month of passenger growth on the year before prior to a five month losing streak, before its numbers recovered from July onwards. The first seven days of 2014 set up the rest of the month for Air Serbia as it saw growth of almost 65% during the New Year and Christmas holiday season.
In January, Air Serbia took delivery of its fifth Airbus A319, thus boasting a fleet of sixteen operational aircraft - seven Boeing 737-300s, five Airbus A319s and four ATR72s. This is compared to the five B737s and three ATRs which were in service last January. During the month, the highest average load factors were recorded on flights from London Heathrow to Belgrade, Sarajevo to Belgrade and Belgrade to Prague. However, the airline will have to work towards improving its average cabin load factor. The introduction of additional capacity has seen its average cabin occupancy index amount to 54.3% during the month.
Meanwhile, the Slovenian national carrier handled 61.316 passengers in January, up 13% on the same month last year. This is despite a 10% decrease in the number of operated flights. The average cabin load factor stood at 64.5%, up from 59% last January. This Feburary, flight operationns are again expected to decrease with Adria suspending its services to Belgrade earlier this month. However, during the summer operations are expected to soar with the airline launching many new services. This year, Adria is looking to improve on its 2013 passenger numbers which grew by 4.8% on the year before while the number of operated flights decreased by 5.1%
54% is disastrous low! Disastrous!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd why you don't want to share LF for December? You published for November (53%) and January (54%) and not for December. I presume that number for December is even worst, because of Orthodox Christmas in January. Is it true that in December LF was just 48%?
Adria 73% is not bad. Most companies have near to 80%, but 73% is OK for slowest month.
LF for December was 48,54% so it is 49%. And that is not so bad concerning winter, new lines, new system. And you are hater. We here don't have problems with 50% LF and that is normal. Just you have problem try to find that JU is missed project because of low starting LF.
DeleteWho are you who accept 50% LF as ok - a secret groupe of people? ...and who are you to say everybody a hater...bljak
DeleteThe growth is truly impressive but its becoming clear to all but the most deluded that they have increased the capacity way too quickly hence the ridiculously low LF%. The demand just isnt there.
DeletePlease stop with this childish hater crap, anyway you look at it the load factor is horrible, especially when you take into account the never-ending sale of extremely low ticket prices. They must be loosing bucketloads of money
50% load factor is normal? You have no problem with it? Its not so bad? get out of here with that homer crap...
As a passenger I love low LF flights especially on transatlantic flights. Few days ago my trip to LHR from JFK with Virgin Atlantic I had 2 empty seats next to me so I had a nice nap in economy class :p and LF% on that flight were less than 60%
DeleteYes, JU is a disaster and it is run by fools. Only a matter of months until they go bust and you go out in the street to sing and dance out of joy. So relax and be patient, numbers are on your side. No need to get hysterically excited each time we learn about low LF.
Delete...and who ever thing diferent is HATER!
DeleteIf you are a customer, you would prefer low load factor to 95% load factor. So you are not a customer. If you are management or investor, you would have other venues to discuss your load factor concerns, so you are not one of them. That leaves disgruntled former employee or a competitor. Well, for both of those categories growth of Air Serbia is a pain point and their comments clearly demonstrate that. Going forward feel free to discard comments about Air Serbia's low load factors as irrelevant.
DeleteEx-yu (or anybody else) do you have the percentage increase of operated flights for air serbia jan14 vs jan13?
ReplyDelete74%
DeleteNumbers for Adria will raise with introduction of new routes like Munich - Lodz, Ljubljana - Warsaw and Ljubljana - Prague. Profitability is another question.
ReplyDeleteThey should start with routes from Ljubljana to Spain, Berlin, Baltic...
But no. Same old story. Just keep on feeding Star Alliance (Lufthansa) hubs.
Well to get double digit growth while decreasing opps by 6% is impressive.
DeleteHaving just gone through a round of cuts to unprofitable routes and getting their LF up, you want them to start expanding to the baltic? I doubt theres any serious demand, besides its not like they have a sheik to bankroll unprofitable routes, the eu is watching ;)
With excellent local network in the Baltic from Riga airport and with good local network in the Balkan from Ljubljana airport I can see great potential. Maybe even sone cdeshare agreement between AirBaltic and Adria.
DeleteJust i don't know is Lufthansa would allow this.
Any idea anyone why even on English page of AirSerbia most of the announced deals&offers are from Belgrade. OK, I know there are some offers from other airports to BEG and there are occasional, but very limited Happy Friday offers. However, one would expect from a carrier which needs desperately to increase LF to publish good offers from other airports to many interesting destinations with transfer in BEG.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I know one can find some good prices if searching, but I am missing published offers from e.g. LJU or any other airport to other destinations, like BER, TIV, TLV, ARN, LCA, ATH, SKG, AUH, Dubai, MOW or even SEZ.
Really, who cares about offers from BEG on English page??
+1
DeleteWhy on Earth they are not publishing special offers from other European airports to increase LF? Like AF WOW promotions or TK Wingo... Anyone who can comment on that? Hope somebody from JU marketing team reads this as well...
LFs are facts. On the other hand I expected 'exclusive' story today as announced yesterday on Facebook. This is not exclusive story. This is sad story (50% LF).
ReplyDeleteYou do realise the meaning of the word "exclusive". It is information that hasn't been published anywhere else.
DeleteI don't think he does.
DeleteIf you don't like it go elsewhere, simple. And let me say even if there isn't an exclusive every single day, hell even if he just copy-pasted stories all the time like some here accuse him ( which he doesn't btw ) its still the best place to get all ex-yu info in one spot. I know i dont go scouring endless sites and forums to get up to date on whats happening in the region.
God, you are so offensive. I do like the blog and read it every day. If I didn't like it I wouldn't comment anything. I understand the data have not been published but I was thinking about something more spectacular in terms of news.
DeleteAir Serbia basically doubled their fleet from last Jan and people are expecting LF to skyrocket? With such a high number of new routes launched? Posters bashing JU for LF are either clueless about the industry or a re flat out haters.
ReplyDeleteHere we go another homer...
DeleteLet me guess, its not so bad, its normal, you have no problem with it... how about a little unbiased honesty for a change...
Lol and passenger growth of 64% is also bad? Guess they should kick Etihad out and get the experts in like former Jat managment, Kresimir Kucko, Daliborka Pejovic and Hajdas Doncic to run the airline because they are doing a fantastic job.
DeleteWho said passenger growth is bad, its great, were talking LF!
DeleteBut the fact that you have to resort to childish hyperbole is very telling...
I am not sure i understand the comments here. bot positive and negative ones. frankly speaking, the turnaround company became active 4 months ago, increased flights by 74% and the number of passengers by almost the same percentage. the product has been just placed on the market, i would have not been serious to expect load factor that were mentioned in your comments. give them a year or so and we would be able to analyze their performance, as commenting before that is nothing less that expressing biased and emotional opinion that cannot be taken seriously as there is no benchmark to evaluate their performance. best to all of you.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteWell said
Warning • disgruntled former JAT employees on the horizon
ReplyDeleteWhen you increase the number of flights over 70% from same period last year, I'm personally amazed that the LF is even 50%!
ReplyDeleteThere is an airline in Canada (Porter) that in their initial growing years also had a horrible LF, but at the expense of market share increase. Now they are somewhere around 65-70% (for the Q400 fleet) which is not so bad. You have to take in the account that operating loss is different for each one of current JU's aircraft types. A319 and ATR have different break even points, just like old B737 vs newer A319 has.
Give them time people, wait until they retire all of their B737 and normalize their fleet back to around 12 aircraft. I'm sure the LF will go back up....Relax:)
hmm, as always, most negative comments here are big load of bull. as noted, they have 64% pax increase and 100% capacity increase from last year. what did you expect? LF of 95%? when old 733s leave, we'll have again LF of arround 70%, whcih is ok, because number of planes will be sufficient for current and upcoming network
ReplyDeleteNo, it is not about number of planes, but number of seats in one plan and number of passengers in that plan. Grounded plans are not calculatet just those which are in real flight.
DeleteProblem with JP is not LF, problem is in those CR2 gas guzzlers. I expect that also their financial performance will improve when they get rid of them.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite astonishing how people who claim to be aviation geeks and experts do have such a limited knowledge of the proesses that go by in the industry.
ReplyDeleteair serbia in its first month of operation has increase its flightoperations by 74%, introducing new product, nrw airplanes and new brand which was completely unknown. Instead of being oriented solely towards the serbian market it started to focus on region, creating the strong regional network which will attract people to travel through belgrade towards europe, middle east and hopefully north america in near future.
Having in mind all previously said, I find 64% growth of passengers to be quite impressive. Nee product compared to low prices has attracted people to fly with JU. Now, most of you say 54% LF is a disaster. I can agree that it would be betterto be 80% but what did you expect? If you expected the entire region justsuddenly to stop flying Lufthansa, turkish or swiss for example just because air serbia exsists? Did any one of expect entire region to bow in front of all mighty JU because it is brtter than it was a year ago.
I was present st the press conference when air serbia was announced, and I heard hogan giving kondic two years to be profitable. Let me repest It once again, two years! That means in the process of two yesrs new planes, new product and new service is to be introduced, foundatiin fir the future development reshaped and put on the right track. Many business wait several years to become profitable and so will JU. If you did not know LF and profitability in aviation industry are closely linked.
so in conclusion, ju had 64% pax growth which is the right signal that the business model is correct and it simply needs time to develop. Whenewe are given by admin figures for entire 2014 that it will be more useful to talk about trends, groeth and long run towards profitability. And please, if you do not have any understanding of economics, finance and how markets work please restrain itself from posting comments. Besides sounding bitter, it sounds stupid who have been working in the industry abroad for years now.
P.s. it is sad that most of you would have written same comment as I just did if it was lh
Great job adria, I wish you all luck.
"It is quite astonishing how people who claim to be aviation geeks and experts do have such a limited knowledge of the proesses that go by in the industry."
DeletePeople are just pointing out the factual state of the airline at this time, why are you so upset by this?
" If you expected the entire region justsuddenly to stop flying Lufthansa, turkish or swiss for example just because air serbia exsists? Did any one of expect entire region to bow in front of all mighty JU because it is brtter than it was a year ago."
You're exaggerating, no one mentioned lh or tk, but the fact is this region is by far the most price sensitive in europe and brand loyalty is non-existent, trust me everyone in the region is perfectly aware of air serbia and especially their prices so you cant use the excuse no one knows them. I think that they have dumped too much capacity too soon, theres not enough demand to fill all their planes.
" ju had 64% pax growth which is the right signal that the business model is correct and it simply needs time to develop. Whenewe are given by admin figures for entire 2014 that it will be more useful to talk about trends,"
You're jumping to conclusions and its quite naive, going by your logic you can argue 50%lf is a signal that its a wrong business model
" And please, if you do not have any understanding of economics, finance and how markets work please restrain itself from posting comments. Besides sounding bitter, it sounds stupid who have been working in the industry abroad for years now. "
I agree and you should follow your own advice!
"P.s. it is sad that most of you would have written same comment as I just did if it was lh"
Playing the victim, how original.
Anonymous @ 11:02
DeleteSome valid points, but try using spell check before posting. ;-)
It's not only about low LF in JU. It's about increased costs for fuel and catering, it's about increased costs for working force, it's about heavily increased costs for, unlike now, LEASED "new" planes, it's about even costs of maintenance, because leased planes need it, as they are not new, it's about oprational costs and taxes for 60-70 percent more flights, and it's about disastrously LOW ticket prices, almost low-cost, which couldn't cover the costs even if LF were 95%. If you take into account all of these, I doubt about profitability of JU's operations, even after 2 years, "given" by Hogan. Not to mention forthcoming elections in Serbia, and political influence to the project. So, sorry to wake you from your nice dreams, but I guess there are more then plenty of reasons to be at least worried abot the future. I tried to talk economy and the facts, and hope I won't be called hater for my critical thinking.
DeleteHogan knows perfectly well what he is doing. He is having very good deal for his company, taking advantage of corrupt politicians, who use this story in their pre-electional campaign.
DeleteHogan will have no problems if JU continue making losses, and Etihad will not suffer financially. Everything will be paid, the same as till now, by the citizens of Serbia.
And if you have nothing else to tell me after my list of increased expenses, compared to probably reduced, or equal incomes of JU, except that I'm "much more then a hater" , well, coming from you, I'll take it as a compliment.
And, yes, you forgot to list Bosniaks who are haters, too. Thanks God all of the people of ex-Yugoslavia are haters and bad people, just Serbs are the best, one and only, always just, always right, cleverest, most competent and so on and so on. Well, bro, sorry to wake you up from your dreams once again, but the only hater and shauvinist here at the moment is you, no matter how much you try to spit on others to cover your real nature.
We - the users of this blog are very different people... some very educated, some with different believes, various nationalities, amatuers and professionals, many very proud on their national identity - but still people who like this blog. I hardly understand that some are not capable to accept different opinion - at least we all here should respect someone's opinion and argue it with his/her thougts without insulting each other... can we do this?
Delete@ Anonymous February 21, 2014 at 5:49
DeleteYou could've said all of that without the last paragraph. It's quite obvious that you intended to insult... The problem on this blog is that people take everything personally and then start insulting each other.
I always come checking the comments for some new info, but I just can't ignore the argues. This doesn't go just to you, but to everyone else that get involved in fights. When your opinion is different than others, can you just get over or post counter arguments that don't bring up the heat?
From an airline point of view 54% L/F with the present business model is a disaster. If JU attracts mostly 4 coupon clients and sells at very low fares (to attract new transit pax) the result is even worse. Nowadays most airlines even with strong O&D traffic incl. business clients need 80+x% L/F to make some profit....now we can ask ourselves is this part of the strategy? To attract passengers at any price to "find out" their way via BEG? Yes and no. They should have not build up frequencies that quickly in winter time like daily BNX and secondly the fare dump can usually never be reversed, since clients will fly with another airline if it is 20-30€ cheaper, especially families. The whole deal makes any sense for Etihad if BEG airport is "handed out" on a silver tray and is working closely on a business model Aerodrom Beograd and Air Serbia as a holding (like CSA and PRG airport).....in this scenario the airline branch is allowed to make minor losses if they bring huge number of passengers to the airport who spend their money there (taxes, shops etc...)!
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteVery logical,but you'll be labelled as just another hater in 3,2,...
+1 you also have my support with your comment
DeleteI agree totally, Nikola Tesla airport should be given to some very good company from Emirates to run it and make huge developments.It is still run by politicians and it makes me sad.
DeleteI think it is pretty much a lock that Air Serbia will get at least a terminal in BEG, if not the entire airport.
Delete@Anonymous
DeleteWhen you said "From an airline point of view 54% L/F with the present business model is a disaster." - what airline point of view do you represent? Do you represent official Air Serbia point of view with that sentence? Or official Lufthansa point of view? Or you don' represent any official airline point of view, just your own, personal opinion, but trying to sell it as "airline point of view"?
Since you are not official PR but just "concerned" about LF, why don't we talk about years when "concerned" outsiders voiced their issues with Google business model. Google operated for years in the red and "concerned" outsiders claimed Google would never turn profit and would end up bankrupt. If it was up to them, they would have pulled the plug on Google after 4 months. Look at them now!
This is how comments about Air Serbia low load factor will be viewed in couple of years time...
For every successful google story out there, there are 50 companies like Google which failed.
DeleteI also do think that the demand isn't simly there. Neither the name nor the delays have sth. with this poor LF.
ReplyDeleteOn this blog we were hearing some "trip reports" how full the planes to ATH, IST, LCA are, how all Turks and Greeks transit in BEG but the immense fact suggests that operating so many frequencies to exotic routes like TLV, LCA, SKG in times of persistent recession in the south of Europe isn't viable.
Besides I've written on this blog once: I don't know any airline that went bankruptcy because of capacity shortage but I know quite many that did it because of overcapacity.
Of course they have few months more to fix it but I fear with the new once coming on the horizon the situation will be even worse.
OT: F-ORAJ got new registration YU-APB, it will be the eight A319 in the fleet, now it is SNN for painting and reconfiguration.YU-APD ( ex Kingfisher ) are ready for delivery
ReplyDeletesweet. is there any info on when will the delivery happen?
DeleteYU-APA is in MUC, ready for delivery too
Deletehttp://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-a319-1727.htm
Its very common and normal to have that sort of lf in the early years of starting new brand and destinations. Have flown AS twice in the last 2 months and have to say the difference is huge!!! Well done AS! One of the best European airlines at the moment, with great catering!! Definitely the only EXYU airline with a bright future. i wish Adria survives, but its a matter of time before it goes bust. Good marketing and connections for people in region and AS is going to overtake EXYU in the next few years.Im sure Etihad knows what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteLike probably most of the people here, I’d much rather like to see per destination than the overall LF. If most of their destinations are around 50-60% I’d be worried. On the other hand if they are getting killed because they have to send app 140 seats to Tel Aviv and they manage to fill 30% of them than this is a bit easier to deal with once you decide it’s not working out. Of course, nobady is ever going to give out this kind of information. If they did every competitor would be able to know FOR SURE what destination to focus on (I’m sure they have other ways of figuring this out but ...)
ReplyDeleteBTW., a lot of valid comments here today on both sides of the story. Since the hard facts are few and far between, the only thing that I can say with high level of certainty is that the time will show who’s correct.
I think during winter '14, load factors would be better then w14 without cutting any lines and frequencies. During the summer, I hope people would discover BEG as a transit airport. People need time to start thinking about BEG as an airport that is equally cheap, fast and efficient for transit as ZRH, VIE, FRA and IST. And I am not speaking just about people from the region, I am speaking about Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Hungary etc.
ReplyDeleteIf Kontiki starts bringing tourists from the ex-yu to BEG, and then flies them to their respective destination, and if they do it well, that would be a good promotion for JU.
@ Ex-Yu aviation
DeleteCould you please explain me why did you erase my answer to the post above, where I'm crirical about comparing BEG to FRA and IST, which is absolutely uncomparable, at teh same time not offending anyone. Explanation please,. as soon as possible !!!
Because your response was a racist slur which is not tolerated.
DeleteAnd extremely stupid too
Delete@ AnonymousFebruary 21, 2014 at 5:57 PM
DeleteWow, good thing that I have not read it :). Whatever you wrote, I did not mean that BEG is as "good" (whatever "good can mean for an airport) as FRA and IST are, but that people should get used to having normal service at BEG - fast, efficient, cheap (due to JU). Caffes should work thruout the night as well.
Stunning numbers for both carriers. Air Serbia needs a bit more time to prove its business case of becoming a major regional carrier. The load factor is really bad and you can not make a profit with such low occupancy - but I am sure that will improve over time. Adria on the other hand is doing a great job with its lf - 73% is really good in such a slow month, with the worst performing BG route cut off that should improve even further. i wish all the best to both carriers.
ReplyDeletePersonally I am more than happy. It's really good that Air Serbia is seeing this impressive passenger growth. No one serious will judge any business' success after only four months. Let's see how they do in the summer.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia's performance only keeps on improving. I am sure it will stay like this. These positive results are also good for Belgrade airport.
Regarding Adria, it's good to see them record double digit growth but I do not see what's so spectacular about their loadfactor being that high. After all, they are a regional airline operating a fleet of mostly regional aircraft.
"No one serious will judge any business' success after only four months. "
DeleteIf you actually read the comments without bias you'd see that no one is judging the long term success of the airline or its hub strategy, infact the only ones who talked about the unavoidable demise of air serbia (albeit sarcastically ) were the fanboys in their now predictable and boring style, no substance or argument just insults.
And the point of a blog that updates daily and one with a comment section is to talk about events AS THEY HAPPEN.
Now the people who came here to comment on topic mostly focused on the fact that with the extremely low prices they charge, a LF in the fifties must bring in significant losses and would seem to indicate that they dumped too much capacity too soon, a more gradual ramp up would have given far better LF and much lower losses, i dont think anyone serious will argue with that logic?
Why are some people sooo insulted by this and interpret it as an attack??
"a more gradual ramp up would have given far better LF and much lower losses, i dont think anyone serious will argue with that logic? "
DeleteSounds reasonable. Then again, many experienced industry insiders said that early Emirates growth was not reasonable. When Emirates ordered Airbus A380 many said that was not reasonable. When they increased the A380 order to well over 100 many said that was too fast, they would not be able to fill then and they would suffer from low load factors. But they made it work despite not being initially logical and reasonable. I am not saying in any way that Air Serbia will be like Emirates, but I would argue that explosive growth might end up being a good thing for the company despite not sounding very logical to some at this point.
Anonymous-5:38, your comment is with good reason and fact. AIR SERBIA is under way of rapid development. Projected plan will be attainable. Easy to agree about this subject. Rod.
DeleteAnonymousFebruary 21, 2014 at 11:56 PM
DeleteActually, my comment was not a reply to the discussion above, it was actually unrelated. The fact that you managed to find a way and feel attacked (or whatever) actually only goes to show that you did not understand my post.
The reason why I said that no one serious will judge an airline's success after only four months of operations is actually because of the low loadfactor. Air Serbia had to change its core business strategy and to move from being an ethnic O&D-based carrier to a real transit airline. Even if you think about it, Air Serbia's fleet/capacity did not grow that much. What really changed was the fleet utilization which was catastrophic with Jat Airways. There were some aircraft which used to sit for hours at BEG waiting for their next flight. A good example is some aircraft that would arrive at around 20.00 (I believe it was Copenhagen) and it would not fly again until tomorrow at 08.00!
Furthermore, another thing we should take into consideration is that Air Serbia's first months of operations took place during the slow season which meant that its challenges were even greater. On top of everything there were those scandals with the catering system and with the baggage sorting mechanism (in all fairness the latter was the fault of Belgrade airport).
There is something else that no one spoke about and that's Air Serbia's market share in Belgrade. In November 2013, their market share rose from 39% to 41% while in January it increased from 38% in 2013 to 47% in January 2014. For me these numbers are also very important especially because it will force Belgrade airport management to reconsider their current policy of drooling over foreign carrier while downplaying the importance of JU, as was the case until recently.
Air Serbia mostly relies on its six A319 and four Atr-72 while the Boeing fleet is used to fill the holes. Anyway, most of them are parked the whole day at Jat Tehnika.
Talking of the Boeing birds, they are all white now and so far the plan is to use only three for the summer charters.
Just because 50 or even 100 others have failed it does not mean every company will fail. That's the beauty of surprises like Facebook or Emirates.
ReplyDeleteOT : Does anybody know why Air Serbia doesn't start flying to Munich again?
ReplyDeleteDouble daily in Summer14 Sarajevo-Belgrade, wonderful idea . Catch passenger as much as possible.
ReplyDelete