Air Serbia returning to Ataturk

Serbia-Turkey aviation row comes to an end

Serbian and Turkish aviation authorities have resolved a row over slot allocations which will see Air Serbia resume services to Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. Following talks in Belgrade last week, which culminated in an agreement in Ankara on Monday, Istanbul Ataturk Airport issued Air Serbia its requested slots. Furthermore, Turkish Airlines will have to reduce its number of flights on services between Istanbul and Belgrade from its current seventeen per week to fourteen flights per week, or two daily. Low cost airline Pegasus, which runs services from Istanbul’s second airport, Sabiha Gokcen, will maintain four weekly flights between the two cities.

Problems between Serbian and Turkish aviation authorities erupted late last year when Ataturk Airport issued Air Serbia highly unattractive early morning slots, which the Serbian carrier found unacceptable. As a result, it relocated to Sabiha Gokcen which offers fewer transfer options for passengers, which Air Serbia aims to attract. Furthermore, the airline lost its competitive edge against Turkish Airlines, which has been further illustrated by declining passenger numbers on the route. Air Serbia has been attempting to return to Ataturk ever since but has received no reply from the airport operator. The allocation of unfavourable slots coincided with Jat Airways’ transition into Air Serbia. Earlier this month the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate threatened to put into practice the current bilateral air agreement between Serbia and Turkey, which would have forced Turkish Airlines to limit its services to Belgrade to a maximum of only seven flights per week.

The decision to issue Air Serbia its requested slots at Ataturk Airport can be viewed as a coup for the national carrier. The airline is expected to make an announcement of its switch from Sabiha Gokcen to Ataturk soon and will maintain seven weekly flights to the city. On the other hand, it is believed Turkish Airlines will reduce its frequencies from the start of the 2014/15 winter season which begins in late October. Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who visited Belgrade last week and commented on the aviation row, played a key role in resolving the issue.

Adria Airways and B&H Airlines are the only two other national carriers from the former Yugoslavia with flights to Istanbul Ataturk Airport. Adria Airways holds similar slots to those offered to Air Serbia with arrival into Istanbul at 02.50 local time. On the other hand, B&H Airlines arrives in Istanbul at 13.30.

Comments

  1. Anonymous09:06

    What time will AS be landing at Ataruk?

    Much love for troll who will talk about Alaska ir something...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous09:22

      For those way too stubborn to learn, a little help: http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/code-search.aspx

      Delete
    2. Anonymous09:24

      And it's Ataturk btw. And no, it's not a spelling mistake that you made, that is just lack of education ;)

      Delete
    3. Anonymous09:39

      No it wasnt a spelling mistake. It was a Auto Correct mistake ;)

      Delete
  2. Anonymous09:21

    Good for JU. It was time that reciprocity started working. As much I support this, I only have a question: what transit pax is JU looking for in IST (one of the reasons why JU prefers IST over SAW)? It's not like JU has any code share partners in IST. They can only attract pax from Istanbul itself, noone will connect thru IST to go on a JU flight... unless we are talking about pax that will continue their onward journey to Asia with some other partner airlines (e.g. SQ). But then again, shouldn't all pax connect thru AUH?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:26

      there are no transit pax , i dont know why ex-yu even mention this. its purely O&D

      Delete
    2. Anonymous10:49

      Shows how much you know. It's 70% transits from Germany and Scandinavia and I have been on these flights several times

      Delete
    3. Anonymous11:02

      Ataturk is better for transit pax (thru BEG, not thru IST), business pax and O & D pax (due to its better connections with Istanbul itself, less trafic jams etc) .

      Delete
    4. Anonymous11:07

      lol yeah 70% !!! kaze kristalna kugla i tarot

      Delete
    5. Anonymous11:08

      LMAO especially from germany ( TK is flying to almost every village in Germany )

      Delete
    6. Anonymous11:10

      So does that mean that airlines like LH and OS have no transfer passengers from Germany to Istanbul just because TK flies there? o__O
      What stupid logic.

      As far as SAW goes, there are a lot of connecting passengers from Milan and from Copenhagen... especially the former.

      Delete
    7. Anonymous11:22

      of course they have but surely not 70% like the nebeska kompanija

      Delete
    8. Dusan11:27

      Excuse me, i am little bit stupid or ignorant, what is nebeska kompanija?? Never heard for such airline or any company, please enlight me.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous12:11

      Nebeska kompanija is a term commonly used by butthurt people who can't deal with the fact that Jat Airways is no longer in existence and that the Serbs have actually found a way to revitalize their national carrier. They use this term because they lack a grip on reality and they are using similar terms to belittle all the efforts put into this new project. In conclusion, it's usually people from ex-Yugoslav republic who are bitter their own national airlines are failing or by ex-Jat Airways employees who were sacked by the new management since they could not cope with the new work ethic.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous12:12

      Yes it is 70% that's why the route is doing so badly. Because it can only attract transit passengers and no O&D. And having direct flights from Germany to Turkey has absolutely no influence. Air Serbia's ticket prices are cheaper than most direct flights and Turks, just like Serbs, would rather fly 10 hours for a 5 euro cheaper ticket than direct. And the majority of Turks, just like Serbs, book their tickets through agents and don't go on websites to book their tickets so the agent finds them the cheapest ticket.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous12:15

      dream on !

      Delete
    12. Anonymous12:17

      Whatever. I couldn't care less about Air Serbia's performance I'm just telling you the overall structure of their passengers to SAW. Approximately 40% of all of their passenger in Belgrade are now transit passengers. Some routes, like Budapest and Warsaw have almost 90% transit passengers on each flight/

      Delete
    13. Anonymous13:03

      kaze kristalna kugla i tarot

      Delete
    14. Anonymous13:09

      izvinite na vulgarnosti: jbl te i kristalna kugla i tarot

      Delete
    15. Anonymous13:19

      You can't (and shouldn't) please haters. Once FAA Cat 1 is announced, they will try to put negative twist as in "So what, other countries in the region already had Cat 1" or "Crystal ball tells me Air Serbia will now fly ATR72 to New York, ha ha" or something like that.

      Delete
    16. Dusan13:31

      I have been flying with AirSerbia to SAW several times this year and planes were loaded and after i have landed to BEG, almost 80% passengers went to transit area.It was my experience and i wish to share it.

      Delete
    17. Anonymous15:01

      So strange. I have been flying with Air Serbia SAW 11 times this year and there was 20 pasengers in plane and not one of us went to transit area.

      Delete
    18. Dusan15:14

      Really? I think you never saw any airplane in your life except on photos

      Delete
    19. Anonymous18:31

      Realy I just have same think in my mind about you!

      Delete
  3. Anonymous09:22

    OT:
    Farewell to Adria's CRJ200 S5-AAF alas Fox alas Mini:

    http://youtu.be/3ayQZbkEwpw

    She entered service brand new on 29th Nov. 1998 and flew for Adria 15,5 years. She made 34620 flights and flew 38140 hours. She traveled 25,2 mio kilometers and transferred 1.049.350 passengers.

    R.I.P!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nikola09:31

      why RIP? will she be scrapped or sold?

      Delete
    2. aleksandar09:36

      So the plane is being scrapped? It just seems like a waste considering the plane has only flown 35000 cycles. Too bad the used market for CR2s is flooded, and the parts market is very lucrative.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:13

      Not sure whether it is going to be scrapped, but considering the current fuel costs and number of used CR2s on the market, there is little possibility for it being sold.

      Delete
  4. aleksandar09:43

    OT:
    The routine Airliners.net rumor-mill now is talking about Emirates starting Bucharest this year. OTP is the place in Southeast Europe where it is most logical for Emirates to start off. I do hope it happens.

    http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/6105044/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous14:29

      BEG is a better option for EK :)
      B77W-A380 =D i hope.
      INN

      Delete
  5. Rodney Marinkovic09:53

    Dobra volja dobro donosi.Sebicnost je roditelj neuspeha. Ocigledno da vreme radi za fair go odnose izmedju Srbskog i Turskog komercijalnog vazduhoplovstva/ Dobra pouka iz svega ovoga jeste da ljude koji su kreirali ovakve problem treba pocastiti nekim drugim poslom. Da biznis ne trpi, a minister da svoj autoritet nepotrebno ne zalaze zbog neobjektivnih pojedinaca. Wel done. Good luck to all people of good will ! To passengers the most. Rod. Sydney /// Kraljevo.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous10:21

    good to se common sense prevail.... everybody on same level now.
    Haks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous10:28

      "same level" was good , haha

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:08

      Please read the article before posting comments. It was not about the same level but timing at IST.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:13

      It's the same troll that's trolling the entire comments section. You can see by the spaces he puts after commas, exclamation marks etc ;) best ignore him

      Delete
    4. Anonymous15:04

      Pegasus and Turkish 18 flights per week.

      Air Serbia 7 flights per wee.

      Where can you see "same level"?

      Delete
    5. Anonymous15:38

      Probably because Air Serbia asked for 7 weekly frequencies.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous11:12

    By the way, it seems that Aviokarta took down its shameless article on Air Serbia's revised website. Good for them.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous13:04

    OT:

    Germanwings cancels BEG-STR from winter, thereby dropping BEG from its route network.

    The Etihad agreement keeps on bearing fruit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:17

      It has nothing to do with Etihad and the deal. It has more to do with the fact that now, after a long time, Belgrade airport has a strong domestic carrier. Foreign airlines flocked to Belgrade because Jat Airways was weak. Since this is no longer the case a balance has to be restored.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous13:31

      its called home carrier and yes everyone is now afraid

      Delete
    3. Anonymous13:47

      Domestic carrier is also correct, smart-ass.
      Well, so far they have managed to consolidate their position in Belgrade and after Adria this is the second airline they have chased out of Belgrade. ;)

      Delete
    4. Anonymous14:17

      Nisu mogli da iskombinuju da lete sa CRJ900 za BEG vremenski :)

      Delete
    5. Anonymous14:23

      Germanwings Fail

      Delete
    6. Anonymous14:42

      It is not about Etihad deal. We have new lines this year: easyJet, vueling, Wizz air, Air Cairo etc. It is nothing about protectionism. It is just performing better at that certain route.

      Etihad deal should worry only Serbian tax payers (IF we conclude the deal was a rip off, which is not clear yet). Not other lowcost or legacy airlines, not Croats and not ex Jat employees :) .

      Also, today and yesterday, someone keeps writing how JU is a shitty airline. What is your problem? Comparing with LH, TK, BA, both OU and JU are shitty. So whats the point of trolling?

      LH employees who read this article think now : oh, let those Balkans children play...

      Delete
    7. Anonymous14:43

      companies come and go.Germanwings is out Vueling is in and so on and on. maybe the narrow-minded FANBOYS are happy but from a customer perspective its always better to have more choices. Less airlines means also less money for BEG especially since JAT doesnt pay (much) as we learned from yesterdays article

      Delete
    8. Anonymous15:03

      Of course. First of all I am a taxpayer, then a traveler, then a fanboy. If there is still Air France, tickets to Paris wouldn't cost 400€ (they are expensive not because of the monopoly on that route, but also of course because the planes are full). But someone keeps writing bullcrap.

      Delete
    9. Anonymous15:37

      Anyway, Air France is a bad example as they used to be so much more expensive than Jat Airways. I think the cheapest ticket you could find was like €280 but on average we used to pay €350- crazy!

      Delete
    10. Anonymous15:39

      Germanwings are not crazy to compete at a such tilted playing field. There are two possible scenarios going forward:

      1) Air Serbia will pay much lower airport taxes than the competition, or
      2) If necessary, Air Serbia will not pay airport taxes at all until end of 2015

      I don't see many airlines going against these terms. If you think this is good for BEG and aviation in Serbia in general.. wow.

      Delete
    11. Anonymous16:13

      It is not all black and white. And depends on where do you live, what type of a traveler are you, how often do you travel etc. Let's make a hypothetical situation.

      Let's say as a consequence of this situation load factor on Air Serbia flights gets higher, even with increasing fares. Also, the monopoly on that route allows Air Serbia to increase frequencies. It is quite possible. The result is bigger revenue, right?

      Bigger the revenue, more money Air Serbia could use to expand its network, hypothetically, right?

      So let's say you are in my situation when you wanna travel to Finland, to visit friends in Tampere and Helsinki. And due to nice revenue, and healthy yields, Air Serbia opens Belgrade - Helsinki line. (of course not just by pushing out Adria, Germanwings and Air France, but also buy other smart business moves). You would be happy if that happens.

      You don't have to go by minibus (Gea tours) to Budapest airport and fly with Ryanair in those crappy planes with no legroom, as I am probably gonna do in August.

      So, if you have one carrier, especially home carrier, dominating market of its country, it can be bad for someone (for example diaspora people from Stuttgart) but in the same time and in same longer perspective, it can be good for other passengers, maybe even you :) .

      Delete
    12. Anonymous16:17

      (of course that hypothetical Belgrade - Helsinki line would largely base on transit pax, but in order to let yourself into that kind of move, you need healthy loads and yields on most of the routes, thats what I meant)

      Delete
    13. Anonymous16:41

      I don't think the diaspora would be at a loss really. If Air Serbia increases its frequencies to STR as a result of reduced competition, then they will have more options when flying back home. Let's not forget that the diaspora was faithful to JU back in the day when they were quite pricey and very shitty.

      Delete
    14. Anonymous16:55

      isn't the Stuttgart diaspora using Memmingen nowadays?

      Delete
    15. Anonymous17:01

      Agreed. My point is that Germanwings' absence (or any other airline) and thus strenghtening Air Serbia does not simply imply that every traveler in this country loses and has to pay more. He can lose, but he can also get pleasently surprised if some new line opens (like Helsinki in my example). It is not all black and white. It is not all "monopol, mafija, i sve to po grbaci naroda".

      Delete
    16. Anonymous17:08

      Memmingen is more for Bavaria and Munich, don't know if it's really worth the trouble to head there all the way from Stuttgart. Especially not when there were 10 weekly flights.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous13:26

    JU377 to SJJ this morning had 37pax

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous13:28

      JA sorry

      Delete
    2. Nenad14:37

      Is that good or bad?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous16:07

      middle, for ATR72 BH Airlines

      Delete
  10. Anonymous14:59

    So strange. I have been flying with Air Serbia SAW 11 times this year and there was 20 pasengers in plane and not one of us went to transit area.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous16:42

      Човек тврди да је летео 11 пута, сваки пут бројао путнике и сваки пут било баш тачно 20 путника! Мајсторе свака част ти си шампион међу троловима! За награду предлажем брисање твојих порука!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous16:52

      he didnt say there were always exact 20 passangers. if SAW was doing well they wouldnt insist so much on coming back to IST. Relax

      Delete
    3. Dusan16:53

      Trolcina i po, ma neka salje ove glupe poruke barem da se smejemo

      Delete
    4. Anonymous18:36

      Bogami u ovom slucaju ti si trolcina i po kad kazes da je na SAW 85 putnima po letu.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous20:02

      I travelled last month with JU to SAW
      departing 552 on 13th May had 35 pax
      returning 553 on 18th May (sunday) like 80 to 90 pax

      Delete
    6. Anonymous20:31

      Anonymous at 6:36 PM
      HAHAHAHA nazivas Kapetana Boeing-a trolom.
      Treba da te je sramota.
      INN

      Delete
    7. Anonymous20:32

      you are all so funny with your numbers

      Delete
    8. Anonymous20:44

      For those claiming JU has fantastic or at least decent LF's on SAW : Why the hell then was so big issue returning to IST? I mean, it's not forbidden to adore JU, but maybe you should consider including some basics of logic in your comments. INN excused from this, actually I love his comments - nobody makes me laugh that much :)

      Delete
    9. Ix23:33

      I flew JU to/from SAW in April and both legs had more than 90 pax on board, including some transfer pax. But i don't that is the main point. Main point is, what can JU get in IST that they did not have in SAW? More transfer pax - hardly. More business pax - no way. They will compete TK's double daily with perfect slots and the only way to attract some passengers is to dump prices big time. Good for passengers (especially if TK accepts the price war) but not that good for JU, whichever slots they may have.

      Delete
    10. Anonymous00:29

      Unless they are routing some pax onwards to SQ via IST?

      Delete
    11. Anonymous09:34

      It's not just that, it's also about prestige. That's the same thing as flying to Orly but not Charles de Gaulle or flying to Gatwick but not Heathrow.
      Every airline wants to fly to the central airport. Air Serbia will be far more attractive now to both local and transfer passengers.

      Delete
  11. Ivica18:04

    OT: Today approximately at 14:00h near Avala I saw a giant plane that was making landing ( about at 200m alt ). Flightradar on my phone recognized it as Iran airlines, but when I got home I couldn't find nothing of a kind. Looking from side it looked to me like b747 but I couldn't be sure.
    I'm interested what plane that was. Anyone knows something about this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ivica18:13

      Correction: 200m above Avala. So that would be 700m alt.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous18:58

      ИранЕр лети са А300-600 или А310 (зависи како када) на линији из Франкфурта за Техеран и слеће у БЕГ за допуну горива. Отприлике сваки други дан,нисам тачно сигуран. С обзиром да је лет само за гориво, путници су у авиони и самим тим лет се не бележи на званичном сајту аеродрома.

      Све најбоље!
      Сергеј

      Delete
  12. Anonymous18:46

    Because of BEG new price policy Wizzair cut 50% flights. Than you said we can not make any conclusion if other LCC will not leave. Now Germanwings will totaly stop all flights. So?

    BEG increase taxes to Wizz and others and give 100% discount to Air Serbia. Total protectionizam.

    Air Serbia 1300000 pax = 100% discount.
    Wizzair 500.000 pax = 0%
    Lulthansa group (Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, Germanwings) 300.000 pax = 0%
    Turkish 150.000 pax = 0%

    WTF????

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous19:08

      Don't worry, European Comission is on the move

      Delete
    2. Anonymous19:29

      You should check the amount of new lines this year and amount of cut flights this year.

      Conditions and regulations are known prior to signing the contract. They would not start flying in the first place, if the conditions and prices weren't satisfying.

      "Now Germanwings will totaly stop all fights. So?"

      When you write it like that, it sounds really Biblical and catastrophic. Actually it was only 3 departures per week with an A319. With prices that were not "low cost" at all.

      Before this flight, we had Cologne route that was cut all the way in January 2012. So during Jat. Here is the article about it: http://www.aviokarta.net/vesti/900-germanwings-ukida-liniju-kelnbeograd/

      "Nismo privlačili dovoljno putnika da lete, a bio je problem privući putnike iz Nemačke da lete za Srbiju. Ako je popunjenost aviona manja od 80 odsto, gubimo novac, a znate da letimo velikim avionima, sa otprilike 150 sedišta. Drugi razlog je visoka cena goriva, konstantno iznad 100 dolara".

      Obviously they were not so clever and keen to keep those two lines.

      I should remind you about easyJet, Wizz air to Larnaca, Vueling, Tap, AirCairo...

      Delete
  13. Anonymous19:25

    Right now ASL1140 Abu Dhabi - Belgrade.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dusan19:41

      Da li je to nestali A6-SAA?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:15

      verovatno

      Delete
    3. Anonymous20:17

      I hope it's YU-API now!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous20:36

      That is right, ex A6-SAA is now YU-API. Tomorrow Etihad regional starts to operate BNX on behalf of AirSerbia.

      Delete
    5. Anonymous21:05

      Hopefully they good a good deal with F7 and use the available ATR for a higher density route. When was Tirana due to begin?

      Delete
  14. Anonymous20:19

    Air Serbia has just launched a new sale among which there is Stuttgart for 119 Euros (tickets are on sale until December 2014).

    God damn monopoly!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous20:45

      How could it be? Where did the AirSerbia-Etihad conspiracy go? Who am I going to curse now?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous20:59

      It probably went to the same place as the cheap agricultural land and virgins we were supposed to give to the Arabs.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous20:58

    Is another JU ATR out of business again? Their (ATR) reliability seems to be nil.

    JU 624 BUDAPEST 18:25 21:10 A4A ATR 72

    http://www.beg.aero/passengers/flights.239.html?flightId=288145

    ReplyDelete

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