Turkish Airlines will discontinue up to twelve weekly flights between Istanbul and the former Yugoslavia this winter season amid lower demand caused by safety concerns in Turkey, as well as a recent failed coup attempt in the country. The move will affect operations to Pristina, Sarajevo and Zagreb. All three have been previously served twice per day by Turkish Airlines, however, the carrier will maintain ten weekly services to each this winter season instead. On the other hand, operations to Belgrade, Podgorica, Skopje and Ljubljana, as well as its recently launched service to Dubrovnik, remain unaffected. Turkish competes against Pegasus Airlines on flights to Pristina and Sarajevo from Istanbul (from different airports) and has a monopoly on its route to Zagreb.
Turkish Airlines is the largest by capacity and frequency at Sarajevo Airport, offering over 3.000 seats from the Bosnian capital each week. In Pristina, the carrier is fifth largest by capacity, offering almost 2.000 seats for sale each week, and third largest in terms of frequencies. In the Croatian capital, Turkish is the third biggest airline by capacity behind Croatia Airlines and Lufthansa. The carrier also boasts a code share agreement with its Croatian counterpart. Earlier this year it placed its flight numbers and designator code onto Croatia Airlines' services from Zagreb to Zadar and Pula, as well as between Pula and Zadar. Croatia Airlines already codeshares on Turkish's service between Istanbul and the Croatian capital. Turkish increased its operations to Zagreb to double daily after Croatia Airlines gave up on the route in 2013.
Turkish has propelled itself to become one of the fastest growing carriers in the world over the past decade. However, for the first time in years, the carrier has lowered its full-year passenger growth guidance, and the number of frequencies and capacity have been trimmed across its network. Despite downsizing its operations in the region, the carrier has emphasised the importance of the former Yugoslav market. “Turkish Airlines always gives crucial importance to the former Yugoslav market, considering its contribution to our global network. These routes are of great potential and feed Turkish’s European points, as well as points in the United States", a company spokesperson told EX-YU Aviation News. They added, "Currently there are no plans to add new routes in this market, but maybe in the future". Turkish Airlines is the only carrier to operate flights to all capital cities of the former Yugoslavia.
Very interesting that they have dropped frequencies on routes where they either have a monopoly or are the strongest, like Sarajevo.
ReplyDeleteWhile these destinations are being reduced because of lower demand it shows us that they probably had the poorest performance in ex-Yu network if they chose to reduce them first. Quite surprising about Sarajevo and even Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind Qatar/Flydubai took away a lot of passengers in Zagreb. In Sarajevo Flydubai and Air Arabia also impacted Turkish. Not sure about Pristina where everyone seems to be reducing or suspending flights.
DeleteFlyDubai goes double daily to Sarajevo and flights can be booked via the Emirates homepage...
DeleteTurkish Airlines lost almost all connecting passengers to/from Asia/Australia to Sarajevo.
@Sarajevo as if you have access into TK's booking machine ...
DeleteThe Sarajevo market in AU is quite large and the bulk of these travellers almost always would take TK as their option. It was enroute to Sarajevo and avoided Belgrade with JU or the need to fly via vienna frankfurt or munich. Introducing a single stop in Dubai saved them 4+ hours. With competitive fares why would you go via Asia & Istanbul?
DeleteMozda je ipak trebalo naglasiti, barem u jednoj recenici da je Turkish Airlines smanjio frekvencije gotovo prema svim EU destinacijama (pamtim da je smanjio budimpestu iz 21 pw na 7 pw, kao i Frankfurt s 4 daily na 3 daily), ali i ako se varam, New York su smanjili iz 3 daily na 2 daily, cisto iz razloga da se ne misli da je to posljedica loseg poslovanja na spomenutim EX YU rutama, vec da je posljedica geopoliticka situacija.
ReplyDeleteKaze
Delete"However, for the first time in years, the carrier has lowered its full-year passenger growth guidance, and the number of frequencies and capacity have been trimmed across its network. "
BUD je smanjena sa 3 na 2 daily
DeleteThis could really affect passenger numbers at Sarajevo and Pristina, not so much in Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteSarajevo could be affected since TK is the strongest there but PRN I doubt it.
DeleteIt amazes me how this airline is profitable at all. I am not referring to the recent mess in Turkey but in general. They seem to fly to every village in the world.
ReplyDeleteMassive diaspora and they have made IST into a huge transfer point. They have penetrated into the ex-Yu market far before Middle East airlines and they were also smart to expand in Africa before the competition.
DeleteVery simple: when it was needed (to fund growth), the state helped them with billions of dollars. Once they reached the breaking point it was easy to carry on. Thankfully for Turkish aviation the country does not have activists who spam forums and blogs on daily basis with the word "taxpayer" - or the audience who buy that activism - so everyone are happy and proud with their carrier. Even when they ruthlessly rip them off with fares on weekends, holidays and other peaks.
DeleteWell they are not profitable this year. They lose 3.5 mil dollars daily. That why the cuts
Delete@anon 9.15 Only 28% of all TK passengers are transiting in IST so your argument doesn't really stand.
Delete@9:19 AM
Delete+1
28% is still 17 million passengers which is quite a nice bite.
DeleteAnon at 9.19am .... yours is one of THE most insightful posts that i have ever read on this website.
DeleteThe politics of Turkish aviation, and here i mean in the broadest sense - airline/s, CAA, Ministry, airport/s, diplomacy, public - is one for all and all for one, no exceptions.
A lesson for every one else
Aha, except for a failed coupe attempt. And then the saching of tens of thousands of Turks. Yeah, everyone is for this government with no exceptions. In terms of aviation Turkish still wins multude of awards.
DeleteLast Anon,
DeleteAnon 4:36 did not talk about the political support that the government of Turkey enjoys. He talked about synergies in the aviation sector - that brought TK to where they were on 31 Dec 2015. You immediately span the story to the political level which is so typical for the Balkans and which is why no Balkan country will ever have anything that would globally matter. Not in the aviation, not in any other aspect of life.
A Princip?
DeleteYou're being cynical. There are good people, products, and creativity from the Balkans.
DeleteAs for the role of Turkish bureaucracy in TA it is not only go go Turkish, what has become apparent is that with this drastic pax drop, you will see more problems in the higher ups. I wouldn't be surprised if the new airport is put on hold.
With the recent trouble in Turkey I think Turkish might be looking to Europe to make an investment into an airline. Perhaps a chance for Croatia Airlines or a new investment into a Bosnian national carrier?
ReplyDeleteYou must be kidding. The country is in chaos, tourism is down drastically, and there is a war going on. Not to mention constant terrorist attacks.
DeleteConstant terrorist attacks? War is going on? Too much television
DeleteAverage of one terrorist attack per month since the beginning of the year, that is quite a bit. Bombing of Kurds in the south and in Syria. I'd call it a low level war.
DeleteThey are currently price dumping. I'm flying Belgrade Hong Kong via Istanbul for just over 400 euros.
ReplyDeleteThey are fine company, but their hub in IST is sadly just awful.
DeleteAir Serbia has HKG flights via AUH (connecting to EY) for 360 EUR.
DeleteE a Aviatica leti u HKG preko Ostrijana za djabe....
Delete@anon 2:00
DeleteYou made my day :D
Hahahahhaha luv the comment about aviatica :)..
Delete+1 :D
DeleteQuite a big frequencu reduction. I winder if they will use smaller aircraft too.
ReplyDelete* frequency, sorry
Delete** wonder
Delete"...Turkish competes against Pegasus Airlines on flights to Pristina and Sarajevo from Istanbul..."
ReplyDeleteEX-YU, have you forgotten Pegasus presence in Belgrade ?
The article concerns cities where frequencies are being reduced.
DeleteHope flights are back up next summer.
ReplyDeleteInteresting they did not reduce or suspend Dubrovnik. Does anyone know how they are doing on this route?
ReplyDeleteWhatever the numbers now the real test will be the winter season.
DeleteOT
ReplyDeleteDBV
8-2015 335.585
8-2016 378.473
+12,7%
SPU
8-2015 430.777
8-2016 486.581
+12,95%
Numbers are good, was hoping split will hit 500k in August as well. not to be the case it seems. Non the less, still great numbers. Zagreb is also doing well, 308k in August.
DeleteJuly, August and September at Zagreb should be over 300k, this year.
Split should hit 2.25 million pax this year
Croatian airports should do well this year.
Zagreb - 2.8 million
Split - 2.25 million
Dubrovnik - 1.9 million
Zadar - 500k
Pula - 500k
Rijeka - 175k
Osijek - 30k
Congrats to Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik, really excellent numbers so far!
DeleteInteresting choice of routes they chose. Probably not performing as well as other cities in ex-Yu
ReplyDeleteOT: Eurowings to increase Croatia capacity nex year!
ReplyDeletenew Vienna Zadar route to increase to 2 pw.
It's already on the right.
DeleteEW increases ZAD-VIE to 3 times a week!
DeleteTakodje otvaraju bazu u SZG .
DeleteINN-NS
New: PUY-DUS 2pw
DeleteZAD-TXL 3/7 +1
PUY-STR 3/7 +2
Will Pegasus decrease Sarajevo or Pristina.
ReplyDeleteDon't think so
DeleteShame :(
ReplyDeletePitty. Their fares are reasonable and their service is excellent.
ReplyDeleteToday's LX flight from ZRH to BEG by 77W! Inbound at 13:34
ReplyDeleteIt is displaying as A320...
DeleteCheck FR24 HB-JND over Kutina now at 31,ooo ft
DeleteYes I see... Strange... A bug in FR24?
DeleteLooks like going past BEG
DeleteSingapur
DeleteIt's a bug,callsign for beg is SWR137H and it's A320
DeleteOT:
ReplyDeleteWizz are starting a new romanian route - Satu Mare-Luton from 31 October
With all the trouble in Turkey this was bound to happen. Good thing the reductions were not more severe and have affected only 3 airports.
ReplyDeleteLook at the worldwide reductions, they're a whole different story.
DeleteHuge reductions everywhere from TK!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/268614/turkish-airlines-w16-inter-continental-service-changes-as-of-30aug16/
Why was this deleted some days ago?
DeleteBecause more that 5000 employees are on prisson only from TK
ReplyDeleteAlso many others from their main based Ataturk Airport
Sve je ovo vrlo ocekivano. Veoma veliki broj ljudi sa zapada vise ne koristi TK, suoceni su sa jakom konkurencijom i nisu vise toliko jaka veza za istok.
ReplyDeleteInteresantno ce biti sta ce raditi sa flotom koja je veoma velika, a postace delom neuposljena. Situacija u Turskoj ne ide na dobro, pa se moze ocekivati jos jedan rez linija na prolece, pod uslovom da nastave da gube novac kao u prvoj polovini 2016. Ja licno im ne predvidjam neku super buducnost, mnogi igraci ce iskoristiti njihovu nesrecu, inace oni su jako dobra kompanija, sa jednom od najboljih usluga u ekonomiji.