Turkish Airlines plans to increase its frequencies to a number of cities in the former Yugoslavia next year as it prepares for the opening of its new hub in Istanbul and the arrival of new aircraft. Notably, the carrier will run up to eighteen weekly flights to Skopje next summer season, up from this year's fourteen per week. The airline remains Macedonia's second busiest with 83.310 passengers handled to and from the country during the first half of the year. Frequencies will be progressively increased from April 1 and will peak in late June. Istanbul continues to be the most popular destination from Macedonia with some 11% of all passengers travelling between Skopje and Turkey's largest city.
In Croatia, Turkish Airlines will operate double daily flights to Dubrovnik, up from eleven per week this summer. The additional frequencies will be launched at the end of June. The carrier recently said it was considering its third destination in the country. "Twenty years ago we launched two weekly flights to Zagreb, while today we maintain double daily services. In addition, two years ago we commenced four weekly year-round operations to Dubrovnik. This summer, services have been increased to eleven weekly. Our plan is to launch another route to Croatia so we can better connect the country to the world and bring even more tourists", the Country Manager for Croatia, Ugur Cantimur, said.
Turkish Airlines will maintain the greatest number of flights within the former Yugoslavia to Sarajevo next summer with three daily services planned from the very start of the 2019 summer season. The airline will maintain a total of 21 weekly flights. It is also considering introducing a second destination in the country. "We recently received an enquiry from Turkish Airlines about which aircraft type could operate to Mostar, which shows that our negotiations have advanced. We forwarded them information concerning the airport's technical capabilities. We are already discussing equipment and scheduling and we expect to reach a concrete agreement with Turkish Airlines very soon", Mostar Airport's General Manager, Marin Raspudić, said recently.
The Turkish carrier will also grow its operations to Podgorica by adding an additional flight to the Montenegrin capital for a total of fourteen per week. "Turkish Airlines currently flies to every capital city in the region such as Belgrade, Sarajevo, Podgorica and Ljubljana. Before we decide on introducing a new route within our destination network, our team of experts conducts a number of studies focusing on various aspects and taking into account the performance of our existing destinations, which also plays a deciding role in our network expansion. In addition, it is important to take note of various changes on the market and have initiative", Mr Cantimur said.
Turkish Airlines will deploy its incoming new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft on a number of routes in the former Yugoslavia as early as this year. The carrier plans to use the jet three times per week to Sarajevo from September, on selected services to Podgorica in September and October, on its Belgrade operations from October 14, as well as on its evening service to Skopje from the start of the 2018/19 winter season, which begins on October 28. The aircraft will have the capacity to seat 151 passengers, with sixteen seats in business and the remaining 135 in economy class. It has a total of 75 of the jets on order. The 737 MAX builds on the strengths of the Next-Generation 737 with improved efficiency, reliability and passenger appeal.
Uvedu li Split, odmah prihvacam posao u Omanu....
ReplyDeleteif TK open route for Spu, Zag will lose one transfer passenger for asia ;)
Deletesplit is logically the next destination
DeleteHmm my guess is the third destination in Cro will be Split.
ReplyDeleteAgree!
DeleteMaybe Pula or Zadar. You never know especially since it seems they fly almost all their scheduled routes year round.
DeleteWill they launch it this year or next?
DeleteProbably next. I doubt they would launch a service to the Croatian coast in winter. It's too late for this summer.
DeleteIt will be Split and it is good for anyone coming/going to the Middle East, Asia and Australia
DeletePity they are not interested in OU.
DeleteIt's ok, Garuda is.
DeleteSo they are reintroducing 3 daily to Sarajevo after a few years. Last time they did that one of the flights was from Sabiha because of capacity restraints at IST.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder. Their fares are reasonable and their service is excellent.
ReplyDeleteThey crushed each and every ex-Yu airline on IST flights.
DeleteNot surprising really. They have transfer pax on these routes which other ex-Yu airlines don't.
Deletewrong. 3/5 of TK's pax are Turkish tourists visiting the Balkans
DeleteThere were rumors they will introduce an extra daily flight to Ljubljana. Is this true?
ReplyDeleteThere is the third flght to Ljubljana loaded into system alredy
DeleteWhere? Tickets can't be purchased.
DeleteAmadeus. So, with all agents using it flights can be booked: IST-LJU 12:25-13:40, LJU-IST 14:35-17:50
DeleteThese are similar times to those they had in BEG, I think that flight used to depart at 15.00.
DeleteThey will start flights to Niš just watch and enjoy. CAD blocked them in BEG so they will have to split their operations. Win win situation for both and GoS will show how nicely they are developing Niš after takeover.
ReplyDeleteThey can't. They are limited to two daily flights to Serbia. CAD blocked them from adding capacity (upgrading to A330).
DeleteLast anon is correct. The bilateral between Serbia and Turkey limits the number of flights Turkish can have to Serbia to 2 per day. It also restricts the aircraft type as well, to max A321 or B739.
DeleteI find it pretty stupid that this is being enforced considering Air Serbia no longer flies to Istanbul.
Deletewhen an INI fanboy is being trolled by the bilateral. amusing
DeleteGotta love the 21st century free market Serbia is in...
DeleteBilateral air agreements are still enforced to regulate traffic between countries. They are enforcing the very agreement Turkey signed and negotiated.
DeleteOnce again watch and enjoy. Bilateral is stupid and nonsense and do you realy think it will stay forever? Have you forgoten how close are Mr Vucic and Mr Erdogan now? Nothing is written in stone, as I said it will be win win situation for both sides regarding Niš.
DeleteTK also said that they are looking at smaller, regional aircraft so INI could happen only when they get those delivered. Otherwise I fear anything larger than a regional jet would be too much capacity.
DeleteINI can be linked to ZAG or LJU or triangled with BEG. This way TK can even sell the long awaited BEG-INI domestic tickets.
DeleteYou really think the Directorate would give TK 8th freedom for INI-BEG? That's just absurd.
DeleteVAR and CND have been tied for many years with TK so I don't see a reason why TK cannot operate a domestic flight from BEG to INI.
DeleteGoS and TK will both benefit heavily from the domestic flights that will boost the national Serbian economy.
Good to hear they plan to grow in Croatia. Seems they withstood Emirates in ZAG and Flydubai in DBV quite well.
ReplyDeleteTheir next destination in ex-Yu could be Tivat in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThere are not a lot of options left for them - Tivat, Split and secondary airports in Croatia. That's about it. They already serve all the capital cities.
DeleteWell obviously they are in discussions over Mostar.
DeleteTo me this route to Mostar seems a bit more suited for Pegasus but anyway good to see they are thinking about it.
DeleteCan't wait for the new airport in Istanbul to be opened. Just a few months left!
ReplyDeleteit wil be called: erdogan. no thanks
DeleteAre you serious? lol
DeleteFake news. Of course it won't be called Erdogan.
DeleteWhen does the new airport in IST open?
Delete29th October 2018
DeleteWhen Ataturk closes it will really be an end of an era.
DeleteWill they migrate to the new terminal all at once or very very slowly during the coming years?
DeleteAll at once - overnight.
DeleteHas Turkish Cargo suspended their Tuzla flights?
ReplyDeleteYes.
DeleteIt amazes me how this airline is profitable at all. They seem to fly to every village in the world.
ReplyDeleteMassive diaspora and they have made IST into a huge transfer point. They were also smart to expand in Africa before the competition.
DeleteMore like the main reason is millions of dollars in subsidies.
DeleteMake that billions.
DeleteRecent economic turmoil in Turkey and high oil prices pose a great risk for TK now. First five months TK had great results, but the bad news about the poor state of Turkish economy started emerging since mid-June. They will lose a lot of passengers on domestic routes, so now they want to push international routes harder.
DeleteBalkans have more competition than the purchase power justifies, thanks to its great location. They also receive a lot of subsidies, yes.
Nemjee recently shared with us some figures for TK in Dubrovnik and Zagreb I think. Would be nice if he could refresh our memory.
ReplyDeleteAnyone know or care to guess how many passengers they carry on an annual basis from/to ex-Yu?
DeleteI am currently away for work so I don't have the numbers but from what I remember this is the order of their busiest routes in ex-YU:
Delete1. BEG
2. SJJ
3. SKP
4. PRN
5. LJU
6. ZAG
7. TGD
BEG was really strong for them, stronger than BUD for example. LJU also grew quite a lot and so did TGD- from some 86.000 to 104.000 if I remember correctly.
Great. Appreciate it.
DeleteHow come ZAG is not higher? Maybe it's time to increase it to 14 in winter.
DeleteTurkish Airlines carried just over 132,000 passengers on its ZAG flights last year.
DeleteThis further confirms the fact about what Emirates has to do in an airport where TK handles less than in LJU or even SJJ.
DeleteExactly, fun times ahead.
Delete@Nemjee24 July 2018 at 09:58
DeleteI do not believe any numbers you post, unless you post source of your data. You're not a trustworthy source.
Why? Because you didn't like the numbers he posted for EK's Zagreb flights during the winter which got confirmed days later by EK downgrading the flights to FlyDubai?
DeleteI bet he was the one who attacked JATBEGMEL who was posting loads as well. Pathetic, just because he doesn't like the reality.
Delete@Anonymous24 July 2018 at 14:28
DeleteNo, I never attacked JATBEGMEL, I just don't trust the source that spews numbers out of his arse. I need more concrete source of his claims. As to zagreb numbers, didn't his number contradict your @Anonymous24 July 2018 at 13:43 statement ??? It showed Zagreb was doing ok, actually quite well for the first year of operations carried 100k to Zagreb, when compared to Budapest where it flew for over 5 years it barely had 225k.
Means this year EK will have 200k in Croatia, despite not flying full December to Zagreb. From this I concluded that seasonality is the issue, from his numbers, and that getting LF for 5 months of the year needs to increase above 55%, it also showed EK is quite busy in summer months when LF is around 85% last year, and quite likely 90% this year.
What I want is source of his data, he hasn't cleared where he got this numbers from.
He told you the source yesterday and you might want to watch your language. I understand your pride is hurt but give it a rest.
DeleteWhy would Anon 19:42 watch his language? Did he curse?
DeleteNo he didn't tell me anything, I never saw any of his comments yesterday and no idea where he gets his info from.
DeleteThis is his data from few weeks ago:
@"Nemjee16 July 2018 at 10:36
Last year EK operated only six months in Zagreb and they carried a total of 98.301 passengers.
Here are some other markets.
PRG 502.669
BUD 221.132
LCA 179.275
OTP 108.061 (flydubai)
ZAG 98.301 (06.-12.2017)"@
He also said that February was bad and carried only 6000 pax during the month, indicating the lf numbers on large B777 was around 52% or 188 pax per flight. Not surprising, seasonality is the big problem even for Budapest. Zagreb as a destination is doing quite well, i also agree they need to send smaller aircraft to Zagreb during first 3 months of the year, clearly seasonality is a massive problem and even this year/next this might still persist, however as EK has no single isle aircraft, they're forced to use flydubai on the route.
Hopefully flyDubai does well on the route, it'll be sending 162 seat B738 Max, first such deployment in the region, offering around 15000 seats in first quarter of the year, or total of 29000 seats return, if numbers for EK from this year are replicated with Flydubai in 2019, flights to Zagreb should be full, 95-97% load factor.
EK is still winning as flyDubai flies on the route for EK under EK designated flight, and EK returns back with their flights on March 30th. This to me looks like a smart move by EK, we all said sending B777 to Zagreb in winters was mad cause the flights will be empty, well flights weren't empty but for such a large aircraft they're not good.
What also shows me that Zagreb is a the right choice for EK, with the arrival of Korean Air this September, Hainan and ANA in next year, Zagreb will served by serious number of carriers offering flights to Asia.
With Air Canada and Air Transat offering flights to North America, Zagreb will have great coverage in 2019 and who knows in 2020, Delta or American (or both) also initiate direct flights to Zagreb from NJC and Chicago would be topping.
Longer term post 2020, Singapore Airlines, Cathy Pacific, Thy airways or some other Asian carrier might also start flying to Zagreb, ensuring full coverage of the region.
Zagreb would only need to secure Africa flights, either with number of African airlines, such as Kenyan airways or South African Airways offering flights to that continent. however these are even longer terms, perhaps around 2025 or after.
As is, I am quite happy with direction of where Zagreb is heading, and to add, all without a LCC operating out of Zagreb, no Wizz, no Ryan air anywhere.
Ok basically it has little to do with his source, rather you wanted to talk about how amazing Zagreb is in a topic which has nothing to do with Zagreb. Got it.
DeleteNemjee mentioned Eurocontrol, as far as I know, and he also mentioned he had no data for BEG-Dubai flights LF as Serbia only recently started sending statistics about pax numbers.
Delete@Anonymous24 July 2018 at 20:21 No, i just want his numbers verified so I can re-use the data if arguing or using the source. And Zagreb is amazing, that goes without saying :D :)
Delete@Anonymous24 July 2018 at 20:26 hm, hopefully he verifies that, Eurocontrol, ok i'll check them out, Peter has data for Zagreb airport, but he never posts data, so I never bothered to ask him to post any. But as Nemjee was posting data, I just wanted to know the source, so I can verify the data, and re-use it. From what he posted, and some might find it bad, my expectations were lower and to see EK is doing so well on the route is a great surprise.
First 6 months of operations and 100k pax is very impressive, if you look at Budapest and 221k in entire 2017, Zagreb will surpass Budapest in 2020, that is quite certain, 200k this year quite likely, next year 220k and in 2020, 250k quite possible.
only issue I see is seasonality and now quite strong attack by Turkish airlines, who sees this area as their own. This might give hard time to Qatar airways and EK in winter times, when lf might be 6-7k for both carriers, however operating massive B777 on the route is quite expensive so it was smart for EK to use flyDubai for 3 months on the route. However, I think daily B738Max won't be enough to quench the demand, 188 pax in February, 200 pax in January and 220 pax in March might require 2nd flyDubai on the route at least 3 days per week on top of 7 existing flights.
This yea 1.75 million Asian visitors to Croatia, next year 2.0 million. The numbers will only go up with each passing year. 32 million visitors are expected to visit Croatia in 2025, 10-12% of these will be from Asia alone.
If those numbers are correct, Zagreb probably isn't higher because more other options to fly via the Gulf countries. And I don't know why doubt the numbers this much @anonymous at 20:19? It should be easy to check and I'll do so. The Emirates numbers which are close to 100,000 are way better than even EK predicted.
DeleteAnyhow, It's kind of ironic that you are doubting numbers which should be verifiable, while at the same time guessing about Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Thai, UA or Delta, or both...etc. all starting to fly to Zagreb in the next few years. In addition to Korean (confirmed), one Chinese carrier (probably) and ANA (maybe).
I'm really not saying that ZAG isn't doing well, but get real.
As mentioned by some posters above, I already wrote on several occasions thst this data comes from Eurocontrol and is submitted by both airports and airlines. Some update it faster, some don't. Greece and Poland have not submitted Q4 2017 numbers while some others like Cyprus or Zagreb have updated most months of this year.
DeleteSo no, I am not talking from my 'ass'. Also Petar argued with me regarding EK and never disputed the numbers I posted meaning he probably agreed with them.
In the meantime, IST new airport looks impressive:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju6FJ8qRTtk
@20:19 - They've been sending the B737 MAX to Belgrade daily for half a year already.
Delete@Michael24 July 2018 at 21:50
DeleteI am saying post 2020, no idea which year but there's a good chance of what I said happening. Also, Emirates estimated they'll have 80k in 2017, they said at best 85k if all goes well, the fact they had 100k is beyond impressive. 2018 they should hit 200k even thought they fly only 7-9 days in December.
I agree, jan-march really bad for Zagreb, very slow months, never above 200k, these 3 moths we have less traffic than Split in July. Embarrassing.
@Nemjee24 July 2018 at 21:51
Can you please give me the link, really want to have a look at Croatian airports and the region as well. cheers.
Zagreb is so amazing that EK decided to send two types of aircraft instead of one. So amazing they decided it's more 'amazing' to put a MAX instead of a pity -ER, ya know what I mean. It's even more amazing how Korean amazingly motivated EK to augment their service in such a way and even more amazing in the light of Hainan(WTF?) and ANA that might never come and are pure fairytales. Tim Clark believes in ghosts?
DeleteFinally, the only thing really amazing here is your blatant stupidly and schizophrenic-like twisting of facts that point you only to one direction. Next thing we might hear if EK suspends Zagreb is that's 'because they didn't have enough A380 available'.
Now that would be really amazing.
@QR 921
DeleteU're an idiot!!!
They should consider Ohrid as well at least once per day, I'm sure they'll get enough passengers from Ohrid, Bitola, Prilep, Southeastern Albania and perhaps parts from Southern Macedonia...opps, Northern Greece :).
ReplyDeleteHow is Onur Air doing on the IST - Ohrid route?
DeleteGood to hear. Hope they increase LJU and PRN too.
ReplyDeleteAny airline growing in the region is good news. Hope they keep increasing frequencies and destinations.
ReplyDeleteSo from next summer all ex-Yu cities in their network will be at least two daily right?
ReplyDeleteImpressive.
DeleteI really hope they will consider transatlantic flights from an ex-Yu country soon. Istanbul-Zagreb-New York would be fantastic!
ReplyDeleteThat would make the most sense though I think UA from EWR or DL from JFK or ATL is more likely. ZAG is a booming market that is expanding its network fast.
Deletelol We saw proof of that yesterday.
DeleteAny chance for any ex-Yu city to be permanently upgraded to an A330, at least during the summer?
ReplyDeleteBEG was supposed to be. They filed it in the reservation system. Then the CAD decided to protect Air Serbia and Etihad.
DeleteAnd Atlasglobal
DeletePerhaps but I think JU-EY were of main concern.
DeleteWell this always was there area of interest.
ReplyDeleteTK will have a bigger ex-Yu network then any ex-Yu airline :D
ReplyDeleteWhat about Tuzla? Any plans for them to fly there?
ReplyDeleteWould make more sense than Mostar.
DeleteHow so? Mostar is a tourist destination in more ways then one.
DeleteTuzla is a bigger city and does not have to compete against Dubrovnik.
DeleteSo MAX 8s will become a common sight in ex-Yu.
ReplyDeleteYes. Thanks to Turkish and Flydubai.
DeleteThanks to Emirates downgrade.
DeleteI hope they consider Nis as well. They fly to at least more than 1 city in most Balkan countries.
ReplyDeleteIn the Balkans they fly to more than one city in Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania.
DeleteTurkish has defeated pretty much every ex-Yu airline. Adria stopped flying from LJU to IST because of them, Croatia Airlines stopped flying ZAG to IST because of them and Air Serbia stopped BEG to IST because of them. Now Turkish is spreading its wings even more in the region. I don't understand that none of these airlines had any sort of response.
ReplyDeleteIt's very difficult to compete against Turkish because they attract a lot of transfer passengers and also because Turks who are going on city break holidays prefer and almost exclusively fly with Turkish carriers.
DeleteAnd don't forget that they were almost always cheaper than the ex-Yu alternatives.
DeleteTurkish denied 4 additional flights by Serbian Aviation authorities, just in.
DeleteWhat? When?
DeleteYep, they asked to introduce 4 more weekly flights but they were denied. It seems that bilateral air agreement between Serbia and Turkey is very rigid and assumes total reciprocity so in order that Turkish get additional flights Air Serbia need to request and get same number and because they are not interested to increase number of flights or to be precise AtlasGlobal which is flying the route instead of Air Serbia is not interested then Turkish Airlines request is denied.
DeleteIdiotic protectionism.
DeleteThe new IST new airport will be impressive!!!!!!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/293783420/istanbul-new-airport/
looks nice. Hopefully they run it a bit better than Ataturk.
DeleteShame that this is still happening in XXI century.
DeleteA report that up to 400 workers had been killed during the construction of the airport prompted opposition MP Veli Ağbaba to submit a written questionnaire to the Turkish parliament on 13 February 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju6FJ8qRTtk
DeleteBack in the days, TK Cargo was huge news in INI:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2016/11/turkish-airlines-cargo-starts-nis.html
I hope they launch 5 weekly INI-IST to match cargo flights.
It is time for INI to finally get a new destination after nearly 1 year silence.
no, it is time for them to launch double daily to INI- and in high season even 3 x daily- and all this with widebody
DeleteDo those cargo flights to Nis still run?
DeleteAnon 15:38 never say never. Remember little INI with 1 thousand pax annually in 2014?
Delete4 years later, the half million mark.
Turkish Airlines plans further expansion when the new airport in Istanbul opens in a few months. The onslaught is going to make its impact felt the world over.
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody know what are they going to do with Ataturk?
ReplyDeleteAfter its opening, Atatürk Airport will be closed to scheduled passenger air traffic. Its IST IATA airport code will be inherited by Istanbul New Airport and Atatürk Airport will be assigned the code ISL once the transfer of scheduled passenger activities to the new airport is complete.
DeleteSo only cargo?
DeleteAn overview on IST new airport
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju6FJ8qRTtk