FlyBosnia plans on resuming commercial flights from July and will focus on brining tourists from the Gulf to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The carrier, which discontinued scheduled operations on February 29 due to the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic, will operate a fleet of two Airbus A319 aircraft this summer and maintain operations from Sarajevo to Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait City and Bahrain, while it is also working on launching services to Dubai. “We will carry out 200 flights this summer. We must bring tourists back to Bosnia and Herzegovina”, FlyBosnia’s CEO, Tarik Bilalbegović, told the “N1” network. He added, “The year will be tough, but all is not lost. We are trying hard to bring tourists back”.
Some carriers from the Gulf have altered their planned Sarajevo operations for the 2020 summer season due to the ongoing pandemic. Kuwait Airways has cancelled the launch of its new service to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital, while Qatar Airways has pushed pack its resumption of flights from Doha until October 25. “Some airlines will not resume services to Sarajevo before October. That is why it is important to show appreciation for companies from Bosnia and Hercegovina. When everyone else leaves, we stay. Lufthansa has 700 aircraft out of which sixty are currently flying. That is 9%. They will fly between Frankfurt and Berlin, then they will restart Vienna, then Budapest. By the time Sarajevo is relaunched it will take months”, Mr Bilalbegović said.
FlyBosnia’s CEO again criticised the state for not recognising the company’s potential. “Bosnia and Herzegovina subsidises other airlines, while we have no support. That’s Bosnia and Herzegovina for you. We are used to it. We sent numerous letters but there is no understanding”. Mr Bilalbegović sees potential in far-away markets such as China and the United States but noted the carrier does not have the necessary aircraft to link these markets with Sarajevo. “We are working on it”, Mr Bilalbegović said. FlyBosnia has operated several repatriation services over the past two months and ran numerous cargo-only flights to China with its A319 jet to bring medical supplies to Bosnia, Slovenia and Montenegro. Yesterday, it operated its latest service from Beijing to Podgorica to bring supplies.
Good to see they are still in business.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
ReplyDeleteMr Bilalbegović sees potential in far-away markets such as China and the United States but noted the carrier does not have the necessary aircraft to link these markets with Sarajevo. “We are working on it”
ReplyDeleteWHAT?
Basically they want to do what Serbia is doing. Chinese tourism is recovering and they want to cash in on that.
DeleteBosnia also has visa free travel for Chinese so it makes sense.
DeleteI honestly don't know why JU and FlyBosnia don't cooperate. If they are looking to expand into new markets why not launch BEG from either OMO or SJJ and feed JU's network especially when JU introduces flights to China?
Deleteim not sure why they even mentioning at all when they have only aircrafts. tells you everything about how serious they are
DeleteI noticed on FR24 that flights from China to Europe are starting to resume. Right now I see Air China from Beijing to Athens and Xiamen from Urumqi to Vienna. Seems like at least on that front things are starting to return to normal.
DeleteAnon 12:26 Almost all of them are cargo flights only
DeleteVienna and Athens are scheduled flights, not cargo ones. You can see that from the flight number.
DeleteFlight numbers dont tell you much. Alot of cargo flights lately have been using pax flight numbers.
DeleteWell he is right. Many airlines will take months to come back. Some maybe won't. This is good news for Sarajevo because it will have flights.
ReplyDeleteInteresting about them wanting to start Dubai.
ReplyDeleteI wonder will its be Dubai International or Dubai Al Maktoum.
DeleteProbably DWC, they will probably give them massive discounts now that they lost Wizz Air to Abu Dhabi.
DeleteMany airports will be giving all sorts of discounts. I just wonder if there is any money to be made by FlyBosnia on this route.
DeleteUnfortunately I fear SJJ won't be among those that give discounts.
DeletePotential in USA & Far East but no potential for Zurich, Paris etc. where they CAN fly right now & where there is much diaspora traffic.... ok
ReplyDeleteThey really have to repaint their plane with the EYOF sticker.
ReplyDelete+1
Deletethey didnt even start flying when EYOF was happening
DeleteThey did operate charters for atheletes and for the flame
DeleteSo no more Europe flights at all?
ReplyDeleteProbably not this summer.
DeleteThey plan to resume Sarajevo-Mostar-Rome flights (and sell tickets for it) from August 3rd
DeleteWhat about charters to Međugorje?
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's an option this year since most visitors are from Italy.
DeleteWhat will be the entry requirements for people from the Middle East?
ReplyDeletecash ;)
DeleteI mean whether there will be quarantine requirements or testing?
DeleteSo it seems Saudi investor is willing to keep investing.
ReplyDeleteLet's wait and see. Their owner will be impacted by the global financial crisis.
DeleteThey need to fix their cabins and to install slim seats because legroom is atrocious right now.
ReplyDeleteBiH is probably more interested in keeping W6 in TZL. An airport once having 4000 passengers annually to almost 600000 in 2019. Now this is the real stuff we're talking about.
ReplyDeleteAs for SJJ, it's an airport that has already surpassed the 1 million passenger mark.
Excellent achievements from BiH and good to have a proper legacy airline.
One million passengers in SJJ is not an achievement, it's an embarrassment. The whole city and the region are held hostage by high airport taxes and corrupt management. If they lowered their fees and invited LCCs then the airport could easily reach 2.5 million passengers.
DeleteDoes SJJ have more potential than SKP and LJU for example?
DeleteI think they do, unlike LJU and SKP they have almost no immediate competitors. I mean Tuzla and Banja Luka are no real threat because of atrocious road infrastructure. OMO is a joke so they are left as the only alternative in a wider region. It's a shame when JA went bankrupt that the government didn't lease a single E75 and kept flights to major destinations in Europe. Much better solution than this mess.
Deletekind of strongly disagree
DeleteYet no arguments to back your disagreement
Deletecomparable to your "I mean Tuzla and Banja Luka are no real threat"
DeleteHe added that it's because of bad road infrastructure which is true.
DeleteAnd also, Sarajevo is a bigger city than Ljubljana, Bosnia is a bigger country than Slovenia, and it is on-par with Skopje, but a far bigger tourist destination than Skopje.
DeleteIm flying W6 FMM-TZL instead of LH/OU MUC-SJJ.
Delete@16.02 few facts : Sarajevo 275,524 Ljubljana 292,989 Skopje 544,086
@Anonymous that is Sarajevo within its administrative limits which, after 1996, covers only tiny pre-war urban area of the actual city.
DeleteThat is not relevant in any way because wider areas of all three cities have between 450.000 and 600.000 people.
I really do hope that this airline will be Bosnias version of Trade Air. Small but viable inside its markets niche. There was really zero logic in their previous model.
ReplyDelete+100
DeleteI'm really interested, if anyone knows, how much money does Fly Bosnia get for flying these cargo only flights Podgorica or Ljubljana
ReplyDeleteThey got 150k euros for one such flight for Sarajevo to Beijing. I believe its similar price for other cities
DeleteWhat other company does B-H subsidise?
ReplyDeleteWizz Air pays no fees in Tuzla, Air Serbia pays no fees in Banja Luka.
DeleteAnd Croatia Airlines is subsidised in Mostar.
Deletelol so basically everyone operating out of SJJ is subsidized.
Deleteand count in Ryanair too
DeleteSarajevo Airport does not subsidize any airline
DeleteSo they only need to change the airport to get subsidies and stop crying about them
DeleteTruly spectacular interview, what an eye opener. CEO exposed more than he wanted.
ReplyDeleteWhile other airlines talk about closing down, having huge losses and laying off 50% or more of workforce, this is a CEO of an airline without regular flights from Feb-Jul (4 months) and he doesn't mention any layoffs or losses!!! Major airlines are begging governments for bailout yet this CEO is not letting that affect his expansion plans. Even cash rich Wizz is implementing cost cutting measures driven by dire financial circumstances but money is not on this CEO's mind as his goals are simply to bring back tourists to B&H?!? This tiny airline had major issues launching basic routes and filling cabin BEFORE pandemic but is now working on getting planes for expansion to USA and China!?!
If someone told me this is how Pablo Escobar wanted to get into airline business I would not believe it. This interview points to endless financial backing FlyBosnia has at their disposal. Money is clearly no object for them and their financial burn rate alone must have been enough to cause global warming. Other ExYu airlines are shiny examples of profitability compared to FlyBosnia.
Flybosnia has made more money since early March than in 2019.
DeleteFunny that CEO of FlyBosnia does not know that 100 Lufthansa planes are flying, not 60 (60 was one month ago), that Lufthansa "will not fly to Vienna and Berlin" but they did fly to those two cities all the time during crises. One should ask himself how CEO is leading FlyBosnia if he does not know the facts and still mentioned them as argument.
ReplyDeleteYou both are wrong. Currently some 80, from JUNE it will be about 160.
DeleteWell, lets see what happens next..
ReplyDelete