NEWS FLASH
Wizz Air will terminate flights between Eindhoven and Niš next summer season. The no frills carrier will end the service on March 21, 2018, with ticket sales discontinued thereafter. According to the "Fly From Niš" portal, the airline will deploy the aircraft onto its other services to the south-east Serbian city in order to boost frequencies. Wizz Air will continue to maintain flights from Basel, Dortmund, Malmo and Memmingen to Niš. The budget airline faces indirect competition on its Eindhoven service from Ryanair, which runs flights from nearby Weeze. Niš Airport has seen significant passenger growth this year, averaging 230%. It anticipates welcoming between 330.000 and 335.000 travellers by year's end. Swiss International Air Lines, Germania Flug and Ryanair have all added new flights to the city this year.
oh no :(
ReplyDeleteStill no word on the mysterious disappearing Luton to Tuzla flights with Wizz.
ReplyDeleteThey were there last week for April onwards but have vanished.
I asked them on their Facebook page and got a generic reply telling me to ring their expensive customer service line...
Could it be that the route is underperforming because of visas?
DeleteThis is what LCCs do. They go around and knock on doors of desperate airports, get financed, and then leave after the grace period or when the contract expires, the kind that guarantees subsidies/incentives. For some airports, this is better than nothing and is a good way to get the market started (example of Ryanair and Zadar)...while for other airports it means messing up the market and getting other airlines mad. It all depends on the overall market potential. If there is enough for everyone, than it's fine to have LCCs...
DeleteAs with Nis, I believe everything was done properly so far...this route cancellation is not the end of the world.
But that's the thing with INI, no subsidies were handed out. W6 got the same treatment as LX or FR.
DeleteI think this has more to do with Ryanair's stronger overall brand and their Weeze flights.
I asked again on their Facebook page and they confirmed it has been cancelled for "commercial reasons".
DeleteYou wonder if they ever had any intention to fly that route again after they said they were making it seasonal.
Let's see what routes are increased next summer. My money is on Basel.
ReplyDeleteWhat's interesting is that this is Wizz Air's first defeat in Serbia at the hands of a competing airline.
Wizz Air has been defeated from Belgrade on Brussels Charleroi and Rome route.
DeleteIn Brussels the small market was a much bigger problem than Jat was.
DeleteRome I agree, it was difficult to compete with JU and AZ with a flight that arrived at 00.35
Basel increased depended from Skp, because is operated from Skp base!
DeleteMaybe they will switch some flights to use the BEG aircraft.
DeleteSad :(
ReplyDeleteOf course but at least they will use the capacity to increase other flights.
DeleteIt would make sense if this aircraft was based in INI. They would have an empty time window with the airplane sitting on the ground so they would have to deploy it elsewhere. In this case, the airplane will fly other routes from EIN, and not from INI.
DeleteUnless it was operating a W pattern in which case it would make sense to return to INI.
Delete...thats what they say
Delete@11:49
DeleteChecked it on the FR24. It operates like KTW-EIN-INI-EIN-KTW. I suppose it will move to other route instead of INI.
BTW flights to FMM seem to operate from Cluj Napoca, BSL from Skopje, MMX from Poznan and DTM from Vilnius. No connection to any of the other routes. It will be interesting to see if they will hold on to this promise.
Has Ryanair announced any changes?
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough it's only LX a legacy carrier that has announced more flights. lol
On 28.11 INI also handled its 300.000th passenger. It's great since last year they had 125.000!
ReplyDeleteTransavia should launch AMS or RTM to INI.
ReplyDeleteThey're already doing well in Serbia, and the flights to Nis would be even cheaper than the ones to Belgrade.
I think transavia should start flights to Zadar from Amsterdam. It's crazy how there are no flights to Zadar (and Rijeka) from the Netherlands.
DeleteWhile in Zadar we could see potentially:
Easyjet Amsterdam - Zadar
Transavia Amsterdam or Rotterdam - Zadar
or even ryanair on Eindhoven - Zadar
It's beyond me how nobody has started these flights yet while the amount of Dutch tourists visting places like Zadar and the island Pag are already quite high and still increasing.
The Dutch like to drive and tow a caravan
DeleteThis just shows how much better Ryanair is at competing. Their Weeze service must have stole many passengers from Wizz's Eindhoven route. I wonder is it has to do with Wizz's idiotic baggage policy until recently.
ReplyDeleteCould it also be that more people from the south live in Germany than in NL/BE?
Delete"This just shows how much better Ryanair is at competing."
Delete:)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
That's why they try to never operate the same airport pair, and where they do, they normally get beaten. Prime example Budapest, where they hastily copied Wizz Air's network with 5 planes and had to remove three in short time. Planes, not routes.
They seem to be fighting them quite efficiently in Warsaw, Sofia and Bucharest though.
DeleteNow we can see the limited potential od Nis. I hope in some years there will be enough demand for more routes and frequencies
ReplyDeleteLol..
DeleteYou mean like the extra flight by LX and last year's increase from Basel?
You are making it seem as if they are leaving INI.
Yes Switzerland works where 10% of the Population is of Serbian origin.
DeleteAnon : 2:35
DeleteAre you kidding, where did you get this information 10% of the population is of serbian origin !!! It means more than 700 000 people
It must be a joke
Really
He was being sarcastic while referring to the large number of Serbs who live there. Chill... no need to be a loser.
DeleteAlso they cancelled BEG-FDH-BEG from 15th JAN. The cancellation will remain also during the following summer season (as well as BEG-NUE-BEG). It might happen that they will open new destination(s) eventually or operate another two sectors from some (or new) destination (as somebody used phrase “W pattern”) in order to use aircraft more.
ReplyDeleteStrange, the times I flew from eindhoven to niš the plane was always 90 to 95% filled. A couple a months ago they wanted to fly with the A321 because of the popular demand. And now they cancelled the flight altogether.
ReplyDelete