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| Pristina Airport’s second busiest airline terminating flights |
Germanwings will suspend all of its flights to Pristina Airport from late October, at the start of the 2014/15 winter schedule. It comes as the airline takes on a range of routes previously operated by its parent company Lufthansa. Germanwings will discontinue services from Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hanover, Berlin and Stuttgart to Pristina. Ticket sales for these routes have been suspended beyond October, with exception to Cologne, which will terminate in August, and Hanover in September. Flights from Cologne, which currently operate twice per week, will be reduced to one weekly starting next month. The final service from Cologne to Pristina will operate on August 15. Flights from Hannover will run twice per week until their termination on September 13. The one weekly service from both Dusseldorf and Berlin will continue to operate each Saturday until their final flight on October 25. Finally, services from Stuttgart to Pristina, which currently operate five times per week, will be reduced to four weekly flights from September, prior to their termination on October 25. In a statement to EX-YU Aviation News, the airline said, “We won’t be offering any flights to Pristina this winter”.
Recently, Lufthansa outlined plans to develop its low cost subsidiary. It is already shifting short haul flights to its Germanwings affiliate to more effectively compete against European discount rivals. Germanwings, which has 20% lower costs than Lufthansa, will grow to up to sixty jets. However, at the same time, Germanwings has begun terminating some of its services in order take on more profitable Lufthansa routes. In addition, Lufthansa plans to develop Eurowings as its low budget offshoot. Eurowings will commence operations at the start of the 2015 summer season and could pick up some routes terminated by Germanwings.
Pristina is not the only regional casualty of Germanwings’ reorganisation. It recently announced it will suspend services from Stuttgart to Belgrade this winter as well. Germanings once operated flights to Pristina from up to eight different cities in Germany. However, these have steadily decreased over the years. Germanwings’ departure marks a big loss for Pristina Airport. The airline was its second busiest carrier in 2013, behind the now defunct Belle Air Europe, with 156.853 passengers handled on its flights to and from the city. Pristina Airport has faced a sharp decline in passenger numbers so far this year with a 18.6% decrease in the first five months alone.
Good news for Skopje!!
ReplyDeleteIf Wizz continues to expand, yes, but if there are no new flights, the higher demand will push the prices up, then no.
DeleteActually i think this is a very good moment for OU to step-in or create a national carrier in Kosovo. OU should base one aircraft there and start flying to Brussels, Athens or other destinations as well when Korean Air opens Zagreb OU should put their codes on flights to Kosovo.
DeleteWhats the reason for this big decline in passenger nbrs in PRN?
ReplyDeleteBelle Air Europe collapse in December 2013
DeleteNo I mean Germanwings is not just withdrawing without reason fm Pristina. Nr 1 PRN Carrier went bust and now Nr 2 is withdrawing, so whats happening to the PRN market? Less demand? If yes why?
Deleteosiguravajuce kuce sta ce drugo biti.
Deleteefekat "Ukrajina" ce se tek videti.
Nema sanse da se dobije povoljan i upotrebljiv kasko za avion ako se leti u/iznad teritorija koje ne mogu sprovesti efektivnu kontrolu vazdusnog prostora.
U svakom smislu.
lokalne vlasti u pristini,nemaju,niti cce skoro imati ,pristup UN ,a bez toga nema ICAO, a bez toga nema efektivne kontrole vazduhoplovnih vlasti (na koje uopste ni nemaju pravo jer su loaklna vlast a ne regularna drzava) a to se sve reflektuje veoma losim nivom bezbednosti vazdusne polovidbe (jer ne postoji validan sistem-uslov svih preduslova) sto uyrokuje ili prevelike tarife za kasko ili potpunu nemogucnost ad se kaksko osigura letelica i operacije.
narvno load afctor, neadekvatan management i slicne omiljene teme priucenih eksperata su smao maska za stvarne razloge.
srbija jedino tim putem ,ako uopste i moze ,moze albance vartiti na pregovaracki astal.
a albanci u sustini smao treba da potplate dovoljnom kolicinom novca dovoljan broj srpskih menadzera.
prosto ko pasulj.
What is going on with eurowings?
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrible year for Pristina!
ReplyDeleteVery bad news for PRN
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that either Wizz will use this opportunity, maybe EZY recognises a potential, FR is not excluded too.
ReplyDeleteASL should fly to PRN, then they can fly through BEG in transit.
ReplyDeleteTerrible news from Pristina. Loosing two of your busiest customers and less than a year while offering massive subsidies.
ReplyDeleteCould it be possible the LH/Germanwings are leaving Pristina for Adria?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, another opportunity has presented her self for OU winter fleet utilisation where they could send the Q400 twice daily. Doubt they will do anything about this.
I don't think this shows a weakness in PRN, but rather that is becoming a victim of a wider scenario. Recently Lufthansa cancelled growing plans for Germanwings. This is why PRN is being cut. You might say, this shows that PRN is underperforming. Fair enough, but first let's see what happens with Eurowings and secondly it might be that with only limited resources Germanwings has to concentrate on the more core Lufthansa markets. PRN on its own might be more profitable than say the TXL-DUS flight, but that might be needed to satisfy business customers in DUS who might fly it rarely but need a full suite of flights in order to chose LH for their other flights.
ReplyDeleteAs for Belle Air Europe, that was a mismanaged airline. It wasn't so much the fault of PRN for its demise. Belle Air had a much larger operation in TIA, and grossly mismanaged that operation as well. It's pretty obvious now when the numbers at TIA continue to grow despite losing by far the largest carrier and when the overall the number of flights has decreased. And TIA has the highest fees (and no subsidies either) in the region. Belle Air had a an astounding number of planes given its overall flying schedule. Never made sense of it and not surprising that it failed. At least they were a private carrier so no taxpayers' money went to it.
Unlike TIA, which has withstood the demise of Belle Air quite well and the airport operator has been able to reap the benefits with very little investment and discomfort, unfortunately for PRN, there is an airport down the road that has no problem using state money to prop airline flights. Sure PRN has tried giving subsidies as well now, but the scheme at SKP was more well established. PRN needs to use expand its relationship with established carriers who already fly there like EZY and Norwegian.
absolutely not true that LH has cut the growing plans for Germanwings.
DeleteThe Germanwings fleet will be further enlarged to up to 60 aircraft (from 23 now)
must be that PRN isnt the cash-cow we believed it to be
If you say so..... Go educate yourself and read LHs latest strategy. The planes that were going to 4u are now going to EW. It doesn't take a genius to read a simple document.
DeleteAnynom 1458h
ReplyDeletetx for the extensive report. So lets see which of the Carriers will react.
enjoy yr Sunday
greets fm ZRH
Bad news for Pristina, thanks for the comment, Anonymous 2:58 PM! Hope everything goes well, hope Adria or Croatia Airlines could step in!
ReplyDeleteWhere are all those trolls that were hammering JU as being responsible for Germanwings withdrawing from BEG due to some sort of govt conspiracy ? I suppose this too is somehow the fault of Air Serbia ? This simplt proves that airlines will not tolerate operating losso making routes - hence their withdrawal from PRN and BEG. That is also why Wizzair withdrew from some destinations out of BEG - and not for any other reason. the fact that they continue to fly to BEG should put an end to discussions around there being any other reason than it being commercial
ReplyDeleteGermanwings Fail
DeleteDream on man... to leave on havens is much easyer. So your theory is backup by PRN scenario but in same time mote flights by Germanwings eve.to Zagreb is somethung to ignore?
DeleteDream on men. So PRN is relevant but more Germanwings flights to ZAG is not?
DeleteOT: http://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/344446/U-jednom-danu-Hrvatsku-preletilo-cak-2-520-aviona.html
ReplyDeleteAs of 25JUL14, initial changes to Air Serbia’s planned Winter 2014/15 operation from 26OCT14, as follow. Although these changes has been reflected in the airline’s inventory listing, further changes remain highly possible.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade – Banja Luka ETIHAD Regional Saab 2000 aircraft continues to operate on 3 of 7 weekly flights
Belgrade – Brussels Increase from 7 weekly in W13 to 8 weekly
Belgrade – Frankfurt Increase from 7 weekly to 10 weekly
Belgrade – Ljubljana Increase from 7 weekly to 11 weekly
Belgrade – Milan Malpensa Reduce from 7 weekly to 6 weekly (Day x2)
Belgrade – Moscow Sheremetyevo Service operates 12 weekly in Winter season. 14 weekly from 15DEC14 to 18JAN15 (BEG departure)
Belgrade – Podgorica Increase from 15 weekly to 21 weekly
Belgrade – Prague Increase from 8 weekly to 10 weekly
Belgrade – Sarajevo 3 of 7 weekly service operates with Airbus A319, replacing ATR72
Belgrade – Varna Service converts from year-round to Summer seasonal only
Split strikes again!
ReplyDelete"Gužve su i na Autobusnom kolodvoru i u Zračnoj luci Resnik gdje danas očekuju rekordnih 26 tisuća putnika. Lukša Novak, direktor Zračne luke, kaže da su u srpnju zabilježili iznenađujući porast od 17 posto. Vjeruje da će u srpnju kroz Zračnu luku proći rekordan broj od 350.000 putnika, a prognoze su da bi kolovoz mogao biti i bolji."
What in the world is going on !!! sounds like Turkish companies are trying to take whole Pristina Airport even flights to/from Europe !!
ReplyDeleteVery bad news and also bad airport management of this company LIMAK taking care of PRN airport !!!