Belgrade and Skopje eye new Mideast routes

Belgrade and Skopje airports are taking part at the inaugural CONNECT Middle East, India and Africa route development forum taking place in Dubai today, with the main purpose being to improve their connectivity with the Gulf region. VINCI Airports Serbia and TAV Macedonia are the only two airport groups from the former Yugoslavia participating in the event, joining a further sixty airports and forty airlines. Among carriers from the GCC area, both airports are served by Flydubai and Qatar Airways, with Etihad Airways also operating to Belgrade. Air Arabia's planned flights from Sharjah to the Serbian capital, which were to commence in June, have been cancelled.

The head of TAV Macedonia, Alper Ersoy, recently said, "We are constantly monitoring passengers’ demand regarding new destinations, communicating with airlines which are considering Macedonia’s airports as new destinations, and studying passenger flow to and from Skopje and Ohrid airports. Based on these tools, we determine our market each year. However, generally speaking, our main targets are European destinations, as well as the Middle East, due to its proximity to the Balkans and the interest in Middle Eastern countries for travel to the Balkans". The President of operator VINCI Airports, Nicolas Notebaert, noted, "We are working on bringing new airlines to Belgrade. We need some more time to work on flights lasting for over seven hours, however, we are working on all fronts, on both short and long hauls. We must now open new routes so we can secure sustainable growth in the coming years".

Karin Butot, the CEO of the route development event said, "Looking at the United Arab Emirates alone, almost 50% of new routes introduced in 2018 were to destinations across Europe - with the second largest share of new flights connecting the UAE with Russia". She added, "With two thirds of the world’s population within an eight-hour flight from the GCC, it is an ideal base for exploring some of the world’s most interesting and previously inaccessible corners of the world. And, GCC, as well as various Middle Eastern airlines, are making it even easier with the continuous addition of new and direct flight routes".

Emirates, Gulf Air, Oman Air, Jazeera Airways and Flynas are some of the carriers attending this year's CONNECT summit that are taking a greater interest in south-eastern Europe. Emirates' CEO, Tim Clark, said yesterday the airline would become “far more integrated” with Flydubai, though there are no plans to merge the pair. Mr Clark further noted that a review of all routes has been underway for the past nine months with the carrier close to finalising the process. “We haven’t been growing at the pace we used to because of geopolitical issues in the region and elsewhere. But that’s given us time to take stock of what the network is going to look like in five to ten years, and what the fleet fit in that network and the type of aircraft is going to be”, Mr Clark said. Meanwhile, Bahrain’s flag carrier Gulf Air, headed by Croatia Airlines' former CEO, Krešimir Kučko, said it may seek a joint venture with Etihad Airways following a codeshare agreement last month but would stop short of a merger. Etihad itself noted it plans to continue adding Boeing 787 Dreamliners onto its European routes as it takes delivery of new aircraft and phases out smaller jets.

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