Belgrade and Zagreb airports set for busy winter

The two busiest airports in the former Yugoslavia, Belgrade and Zagreb, are preparing for a busy winter season, which will see them handle more flights than ever before, following on from what was a record summer. Both will witness the arrival of new airlines, additional frequencies on existing services and an upgrades in equipment used by carriers.

Belgrade Airport will see at least three new airlines maintain flights to the city, which were absent last winter season. They include Atlasglobal, Hainan Airlines and Transavia, while Slovenia's VLM Airlines is also expected to launch services from Maribor, although tickets are yet to be put on sale. This winter, Wizz Air will maintain flights to an additional three destinations - Malta, Friedrichshafen and Hannover, while easyJet will add an extra weekly service from Geneva for a total of three per week commencing mid-February. Transavia, which introduced three weekly services from Amsterdam this April, will double its frequencies from late February. Other additions will include an extra three weekly flights from Dubai, operated by Flydubai, for a total of seven per week commencing November 25, while Qatar Airways will also maintain daily services from Doha, up from four. The Qatari carrier will boost capacity from its Airbus A320 to the A321 jet on the route.

Greece's Aegean Airlines plans to boost capacity to Belgrade with the carrier to run three weekly services to the Serbian capital with a mix of Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft. As a result, its Belgrade route will move to mainline operations and will no longer be flown by Olympic Air's Dash 8 turboprops. Furthermore, both Israiar and Arkia Israeli Airlines will continue to maintain flights from Tel Aviv over the winter. On the other hand, Air Serbia will cut down on its operations and will no longer run services from its hub to Abu Dhabi and Istanbul unlike last winter season, however, it will continue to fly to Venice, which was launched this summer.

Several carriers have committed to increasing both frequencies and capacity to Zagreb Airport when compared to last winter, with El Al Israel Airlines recently announcing it will extend its seasonal summer flight programme between Tel Aviv and Zagreb by a month, until the end of November. Services will be maintained once per week. Furthermore, as previously reported, Croatia Airlines has extended its seasonal flights to Barcelona and Lisbon until early January, while Qatar Airways will uphold its two daily service throughout the winter, up from last year's ten weekly flights. LOT Polish Airlines will increase frequencies to Zagreb by maintaining eight instead of six weekly services, all of which are scheduled to run with the Embraer E175 aircraft, although the airline has shown to be flexible with its equipment and regularly deploys larger aircraft depending on demand.

Carriers that will be operating to Zagreb Airport this year, but were absent last winter, include Emirates, with a five weekly service from Dubai, as well as Norwegian Air Shuttle, which will extend its seasonal services from Stockholm and Copenhagen. Furthermore, Lufthansa's low cost unit Eurowings will add its fourth destination to the Croatian capital, from Dusseldorf, starting October 31. Sales for the new route have been encouraging, resulting in the airline's decision to run the service three times per week instead of two, as initially scheduled. On the other hand, Monarch Airlines, which launched seasonal flights from the United Kingdom to Zagreb this summer and planned to extend them throughout the winter has collapsed and discontinued all operations. In addition, both ČSA Czech Airlines and Brussels Airlines have limited their operations to the Croatian capital and will now run flights only during the summer. Zagreb Airport is targeting passenger growth of 8% in 2017, although it is expected to surpass this figure.

EX-YU Aviation News will publish planned airline modifications for all of the major airports in the former Yugoslavia in the coming weeks. The 2017/18 winter season begins this Sunday and runs until March 25, 2018.