Low cost carrier Wizz Air will expand its operations in Serbia this coming summer season by increasing frequencies and capacity on existing flights, while launching one new route and resuming a previously suspended service. From its base in Belgrade, the airline will grow frequencies on flights to Dortmund, Malta and London Luton, which will be maintained five times per week and the latter two four times per week. Furthermore, the airline has upped capacity to the British capital on select days from the 180-seat Airbus A320 aircraft to the 230-seat A321 throughout April. Wizz will also introduce a new two weekly service from Belgrade to Lyon. Initially scheduled as seasonal, the route has now been upgraded to year round. Both airports are run by operator VINCI. "With the new route, we will now serve fourteen destinations from Belgrade to seven countries. As a result, Wizz Air will support close to 700 jobs in Serbia this year alone", the company said.
Wizz Air will resume flights between Malmo and Niš this April after discontinuing the service on January 7. Flights between the two cities will restart on April 17 and will run twice per week, each Wednesday and Sunday. The route was shelved following the closure of the budget carrier's base in Poznan, from where the operating aircraft was deployed for the Malmo - Niš service. The jet will now be sourced from the airline's Katowice base. In total, Wizz Air will have 921.000 seats on sale from Serbia this year. The airline handled close to 800.000 travellers on flights to and from Belgrade and Niš in 2018, representing an increase of 6% on the previous year.
Wizz Air's CEO, Joszef Varadi, recently said, "We are totally committed to the [Serbian] market and we hope to see some improvements of commercial terms in the marketplace. That would certainly attract us with more capacity. We will see what VINCI will bring into the party". The airport operator previously noted it would keep Belgrade's fees unchanged for the first three years of its 25-year concession. However, VINCI can make changes to the airport's incentive plan. Wizz Air's last major expansion in the Serbian market came in 2017 when it based its second aircraft in Belgrade and introduced a number of new routes.
Finally they woke up a bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping they finally base a third plane in BEG in 2020.
DeleteThey are getting a lot of NEOs from Airbus so I would think that is very possible to happen.
DeleteInteresting to see Malta performing well for them from both BEG and SKP.
ReplyDeleteBEG-MLA will be daily in summer.
DeleteYes, if you count Air Serbia's flights.
DeleteI brought in January two return tickets from BEG to MLA for flights on April 26th and return on April 29th for 130EUR per person. Now tickets are 340EUR for the same dates more than month before the flight. But for the dates before April 26th tickets are still around 130EUR for the return flight. This show that Malta is very popular destination during holidays and during summer season but for the rest of the year on this route majority of passengers are Serbians living in Malta.
DeleteLet us know how the loads were on your flight.
DeleteMeh... nothing major really. In conclusion they are adding 6 new weekly frequencies from Belgrade. As for the A321 from Luton, why do I have a feeling it has more to do with technical reasons than actual demand? If it was due to demand than A321 would stay for longer.
ReplyDeleteI would say the A321 is rather there because of Easter.
DeleteConsidering how passive they have been on the Serbian market this is a good start.
DeleteA321 ops from London will eventually be extended on two out of four weekly flights for the entire summer.
DeleteIt is not actually real expansion, looks more like cosmetic changes
ReplyDeleteNew route is a cosmetic change for you?
DeleteIt is only seasonal and taking in consideration the expansion other airlines do as well as the size of Belgrade airport, yes it is only cosmetic
DeleteLyon is likely to be upgraded to year round.
DeleteDoubt it, I think it will stay seasonal as there isn't so much demand in winter. GVA is the primary market.
DeleteI agree with anon 09:15.
DeleteLYS will stay seasonal in the best case
As I see tickets for LYS are available for the next winter season, until March 28 2020. So it will probably be year round route.
Delete@9.07 Lyon is year round. Tickets are on sale for winter.
Delete@9.15, 9.17 both of you are wrong. LYS stays 2x weekly in winter.
DeleteThat wasn't the case a few days ago. I guess advance bookings were extremely strong.
DeleteeasyJet from GVA and Wizz Air from LYS don't operate on the same day so there is absolute flexibility for the passengers. Two airports are just 149 km away.
Delete"Low cost carrier Wizz Air will introduce new seasonal flights from Belgrade to Lyon this coming summer"
Deletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2019/03/wizz-air-to-launch-new-belgrade-service.html
@Admin, what is the correct information? Seasonal or not?
As you may notice in the article above, the route has just been upgraded to year-round operations.
DeleteYes, I see it now, sorry
DeleteObviously, LYON is not seasonal route as you can buy tickets until March 2020. This is something everyone can cjecl, but people do not have tome to open any other souces, because they are typing comments here. However, load factor on MLA as well as all the other flights is usually more than 160-165 seats out of A320's 180. Like it or not, WizzAir is performing very well on the Serbian and Bosnian market :)
DeleteThey have also rescheduled a whole bunch of flights.
ReplyDeleteLike every spring when the schedule is being change. Wait for October, so you can post same comment again xD
DeleteDoes that mean that the crew on the Malmo-Nis flight is Polish?
ReplyDeleteYes just like BSL-OSI is operated by Serbian crew.
DeleteOk, thank you :)
DeleteI looked at their schedule and it seems MMX will have another rotation to somewhere before the flight goes back to Belgrade.
DeleteWouldn't it be more logical for BEG plane to operate BEG-MMX-INI-MMX-BEG with Serbian crew?
DeleteProbably would be too long day for one crew.
DeleteIt wouldn’t be too long, as flights would be around 2:00 hours approximately, it would fit within the flight time limitations for the crew.
DeleteIt is not about length, but about number of aircrafts. KTW is base with 6-7 aircrafts comparing to BEG's 2. They do not have capacity for this from BEG base unless they base one more aircraft.
DeleteWaiting for Belgrade-Vienna with W6 please!
ReplyDeleteThey already fly Nis-Vienna.
Deletenot happening with W6 (only Lauda is crazy enough) but you can hope for BTS :)
DeleteWhy? Do you think they would not be able to compete against Austrian and Air Serbia?
DeleteOS-JU operate a total of 34 weekly flights with fantastic schedules. Wizz Air will have to have a lot of flights in order to remain competitive against those two. I don't think they could succeed with less than 4 weekly flights, split schedule, morning-evening.
DeleteThey might have 34 flight but they are also very expensive for a flight lasting just over an hour.
DeleteAbsolutely, they are. However since pricing was brought back to Belgrade, fares for same day return flights have gone considerably down. In the past JU was €420 while now it's around €200. Same for OS... you can find one-way tickets for €100 which is great compared to what we had in the past. OS was €600 before. So I would say we are moving in the right direction. It could also be a preemptive strike against its competitors.
DeleteWizz may fly in the middle of the night and will still have full A321 on Belgrade-Vienna route.
DeleteEven with all the competition I still think Wizz could make it work to Vienna as the number 1 gasto destination.
DeleteIsn't Zurich the number 1 gasto route?
DeleteActually I think Bratislava would be a smarter choice. There is a growing Serbian diaspora in Slovakia and this way they would not compete directly against Austrian and Air Serbia.
DeleteBut again, there is already Nis-Bratislava with Ryanair.
DeleteBut again, what`s that got to do with anything?
DeleteWe will see how long Ryan survives on Nis-Bratislava route against Wizz's Nis-Vienna.
DeleteI was expecting that at least few new routes from Nis would be announced, since there is Paris, Oslo, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Rome and many more potential destinations unserved. I do not know what are waiting for..
ReplyDeleteI think that despite optimism by some it has been proven that Nis is a very small and extremely seasonal market which is why FR and W6 have cancelled routes.
DeleteOr simply INI expanded way too fast in the beginning. We need to give time for these routes to mature before new ones are added. They did manage to keep LX despite the airline's utter failure in all of ex-YU besides BEG.
DeleteW6 flies from FRA only to 3 airports in Europe (Kiev, Sofia and Budapest) and there is no chance to start even BEG.
DeleteNo need to speak about it how far is INI from direct W6 route with FRA
They might be waiting for the subsidy tender in INI for new routes. What would be the point of launching new flights if they could get money for them in a few months.
DeleteI hope they will actually be considered and that the tender won't be fixed.
DeleteIt seems that a London-based aircraft is taking over the Luton route and that it won't be operated by one of the two planes in BEG.
ReplyDeleteLyon is a nice add
ReplyDeletecould Geneva gastos use this route in the absence of direct GVA flights? (hint! :D)
DeleteBut there is already a direct GVA flight on easyJet.
Delete@9.32 he didnt mean BEG
DeleteThen he should be more precise since this is a BEG topic and he shouldn't hijack it especially since his comment should be made on yesterday's topic. ;)
Deleteits not a BEG topic. the question can also be applied for INI
DeleteSo many flights to France all of the sudden. VINCI effect? New flights to Lyon by Wizz, Nice by Air Serbia, Paris by Air France and ASL France, extra frequency to Paris by Air Serbia. In total 14 extra flights from Belgrade to France this summer.
ReplyDeleteI think France was generally underserved in the past so airlines are rushing to fill the void.
DeleteIt just shows how badly they were needed.
DeleteI really hope ASL survives because tickets between Belgrade and Paris are crazy expensive and Wizz Air with its Beauvais flights is not a real alternative. And even Wizz is very expensive on this route by its standards.
DeleteBEG to that village BVA are almost always north of €300!
DeleteGood luck Wizz. Hope they add more destinations in the future.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Air Serbia losing the profit of the summer 2019 :(
ReplyDelete?
DeleteThat's true Wizz Air over takes the most.
DeleteGood luck Wizz Air keep going forward ;)
Well with Kraljevo Airport opening maybe they could consider some routes from there too :D
ReplyDeleteThey actually said they would.
DeleteCan Lyon be considered a gasto route or not?
ReplyDeletesure, it is the competition for Easyjet GVA route.
DeleteLike someone said, Lyon and Geneva are 150km apart. I would hardly say they compete against each other.
DeleteYes it's a gasto route. Many Serbs live in Lyon.
DeleteIs this the first time Wizz is operating some route with A321 to Belgrade?
ReplyDeleteYes, there were a few diversions in the past but those don't count.
DeleteWizz Air should have launched BEG-LIS this summer. It's probably the biggest market left unserved from BEG. That said, Berlin and Barcelona were their biggest missed chances.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me TAP will relaunch LIS-BEG.
DeleteWizz's biggest missed opportunity rom BEG is certainly the Iberian peninsula.
Delete*from
Delete+1
DeleteSomehow I have always had doubt about BEG-LIS.
DeleteTAP started this route and it didn't last long. I know that flying times were terrible and that there were a lot of delays. Also TAP was struggling at that moment, but honestly I do not see the demand here.
There is no diaspora, economic ties almost zero, connecting flights already offered through many other bigger airports and the flights take way too long that could not be very attractive price wise.
Only tourism (and probably one way tourism from Serbia to Portugal) could bring some passengers , but in that case charters are more than enough.
Maybe I am wrong and I wish I were wrong, but that is how all situation looks to me.
TP had great loads btw. They experienced fleet shortage and their operations kept on crashing. Delays of several hours were not uncommon back then. I think two weekly from June to September could work on an airline with low operating costs such as Wizz Air.
DeleteThe sweet-spot on that route for TAP, for passengers from BEG, is also onwards connections to South America. This should not be overlooked.
DeleteLondon was never a popular neither for Belgrade nor Zagreb, which is quite strange, tbh.
ReplyDeleteYes, Serbians need visas for UK and so do Ukranians but still much more flights for example from Kiev.
W6 should have minimum daily or 10 weekly flights to London.
Not to mention the strange absence of ZAG-LTN!
W6 are seriously being extremely passive in BEG. A huge, European capital bigger than PRG and SOF needs minimum 5 W6 planes and more connections to UK, Spain, Ukraine, Portugal, Israel and Czechia.
As an EU registered airline they cannot fly from Serbia to Ukraine or Israel. In other words any non EU destination. Exceptions are Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and soon UK.
DeleteWhy is it so difficult to understand that EU LCC can't fly any route between countries that are not in EU based on Open sky agreement if they do not obtain special permissions?
DeleteLJU has incredible connections with London, so ZAG really doesn´t need them apart from British Airways that fly to LHR.
DeleteWhat they could do is get the freaking Serbian AOC, pay taxes there, start Moscow, Kiev, Eilat...
DeleteWizz Air isn't paying taxes in Hungary despite having their AOC, so don't keep the hopes up if they ever get a Serbian one.
DeleteOn what earth BEG is bigger city then SOF and PRG? Have you been to both cities?
DeleteIn terms of population. Belgrade is much bigger than both cities.
DeleteYou must be kidding. Sofia is comparable to Belgrade, on the other hand Prague is almost two times Belgrade.
DeleteAnon 1740 is right. PRG is the biggest of the 3 based on population.
DeletePRG metro is almost 2.7m (nearly 25% of population)
BEG and SOF metro almost 1.7m though BEG is very slightly bigger.
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=met_pjanaggr3&lang=en
Real metro area of Belgrade have 2.5 million people, which include Pancevo, Smederevo, Nova Pazova, Indjija ETC. BEG metro area you mentioned is city limit, but you don't know that different towns are just 10 km of Belgrade and not part of city proper. Real metro area include towns OUT of city proper.
DeleteThey don't care because like this they get to belittle Belgrade and that's all they care for.
Delete800,000 is not a bad result for last year. With another aircraft (either in BEG or INI) they would have around a million passengers.
ReplyDeleteNice to see LYS upgraded. Hope they turn LCA to year round again.
ReplyDeleteIf the flights from SKP prove successful this Summer I can definitely see them increasing capacity and extending the flights to Autumn.
DeleteI don't see them going year round unless JU abandons it first.
JU isn't suspending their flights in winter, they even increased it much earlier this year so I guess they are doing fine in LCA. I don't think Wizz will bring back their own flights in winter, they are happy with summer flights. I think they sold most of their seats to tour operators.
DeleteTheir fares in July are atrocious:
Week 1: 34.999 and 15.999
Week 2: 15.999 and 34.999
Week 3: 17.749 and 34.999
Week 4: 15.999 and 34.999
All these are one-way and do not include luggage. JU on the other hand is 17.000 one way or 25.700 return.
Those fares are crazy but I'm not surprised. I'm flying to Larnaca during the first week of April. Air Serbia was the cheaper option. I booked 2 weeks ago.
DeleteGreat to see Wizz expanding from Belgrade again. Hopefully this is just a warm up for next year.
ReplyDeletewhat other routes are really left for them to add from BEG?
ReplyDeleteThey could return to Norway and Belgium.
DeleteCRL is really needed so that JU ends its evil monopoly on the route.
DeleteFares are extremely affordable from SKP.
Evil monopoly? Are you talking about Wizz at Tuzla again?
DeleteIt is interesting how come nobody's noticed that Wizz has reduced VIE-INI from three to two weelky and increased BEG-DTM from four to five weekly.
ReplyDeleteI can't blame VIE-INI. Just check the fares they are currently offering.
DeleteMy guess is that there is a fierce competition again with FR on the INI-BTS route. There are many seats for dirty cheap prices.
It was also a crazy idea to deploy the A321 on the INI-VIE route.
Here are some examples:
W6:
ЛЕТОВИ 1.199 дин
МАЈ
21
Ниш – Беч
15:30 – 16:55 (W6 2830)
Основна цена
1 × Авионска карта 199 дин
1 × Административна накнада 1.000 дин
Изаберите повратни лет
ПУТНИЦИ
СЕДИШТА
УСЛУГЕ
ПЛАЋАЊЕ
УКУПНО
1.199 дин
Almost 10€
FR
Price breakdown
Flights
Nis to Bratislava
Fri 24th May 16:20 - 17:35 FR 2988
1 x Adult Standard fare € 9.99
1 x Small Bag (40cm x 20cm x 25cm)Included
May be subject to payment fee
Total to pay€ 9.99
Such prices are available on many, many dates:
We will see who wins.
Wizz from Belgrade should try Palermo, Catania and Malaga twice a week .
ReplyDeleteI think there's other more priority routes needed for BEG asap, like Lisbon and Dublin.
DeleteFor Dublin Serbs need visas, it is not worth the hussle.
DeleteLisbon ony works with connections, and only TAP could provide them as it is.