NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia’s representative for Northern Greece has met with the Mayor of the city of Ioannina in the north-west of the country to discuss potential flights from Belgrade. Mayor Moses Elisaf said there were good prospects to connect Ioannina with the Serbian market. Air Serbia maintains scheduled flights to Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece but has an extensive charter network to the country over the summer months, which includes Chania, Corfu, Heraklion, Karpathos, Kefalonia, Kos, Preveza/Lefkada, Samos, Santorini, Skiathos, Rhodes and Zakynthos. In addition, it maintains summer charters from Banja Luka to Athens, while scheduled services from Kraljevo to Thessaloniki will be introduced later this year. Starting next week, Air Serbia will increase frequencies from Belgrade to both Athens and Thessaloniki. The airline plans ten instead of seven weekly flights to the Greek capital and six instead of five weekly services to Thessaloniki to be maintained from January 30 until the summer, before they are both increased to the usual double daily operation.
What is the appeal of Ioannina when they already fly to the nearby islands?
ReplyDeleteThere are popular tourist spots on mainland in that part of Greece, Parga for example.
Deleteplus, Meteora is much closer to Ioannina then Thessaloniki. also, JU could capture transfer passengers from the region
DeleteIoannina and the surrounding region is actually quite beautiful and picturesque.
DeleteBut I think it more of a winter destination than Summer.
I also think that is close enough to BEG that it would be better served with ATRs
Thanks for the insight, anons!
DeleteIt also could serve Southern Albania.
DeleteI guess a lot of Greeks have moved out of the mountainous north to western Europe, so this could be a very good route for capturing transfer passengers.
ReplyDeleteIoannina is like a greek version of Ohrid -
ReplyDeletelakeside town with beautiful surroundings !
Parga is served by Preveza airport. ( Parga and Lefkada same flight)
ReplyDeleteIOA could also serve the south of Albania. And feed JU's network to Europe and the US.
ReplyDeleteAgree. It's more like South Albania Airport to be served by an ATR thrice weekly scheduled, no idea what is the potential and target customer for charters.
DeleteJU will compete with their brand new ATRs against double daily A3? Good luck
DeleteIf the price is good of course they can.
DeleteJU is also competing with A3 for flights from ATH to Europe via BEG despite A3 offering direct flights at higher frequencies.
Price is king!
What an irony... this morning we saw ‘the General Manager for Air France, KLM and Transavia for Alps, Balkans and Central Europe‘, here we see ‘ Air Serbia’s representative for Northern Greece‘.
ReplyDeleteComparison of commercial companies with state owned companies in Balkans in a nutshell.
It's a sales representative - gsa. Not a person working directly at Air Serbia.
DeleteAir France is also state owned.
DeleteWow, so much hatred towards (presumably) the place where you live in so few words.
DeleteHave you ever wondered how big of a market northern Greece is for JU? How many tourists are flown to Corfu, Thessaloniki or any other charter destination in the region? Like someone said, it's a GSA, not a direct JU employee.
DeleteSounds like a generic meeting about nothing. Standard information gathering for an airline in my view
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ReplyDeleteSmall town, small airport, only one destination served in winter. Overall, market is too small.
Me don't think it work.
That's perfect!
ReplyDeleteI am more excited about the upcoming increases to Athens and Thessaloniki because they are extending the season and reducing seasonality. And as an av geek it's also great because February numbers should be considerably boosted.
ReplyDeleteKudos to AS! There is no other carrier in the region as nimble and forward thinking. I hope AS doesn't overextend itself.
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