Low cost carrier Wizz Air has delayed the stationing of a third aircraft and the launch of nine new routes from Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport by a month, from July 16 to August 17 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and uncertainty over travel restrictions. Operations to Salzburg, which launched last week, will continue to operate as scheduled along with all of Wizz Air's existing routes from Belgrade and Niš. Under the revised timetable, services to Hamburg, Turku and Cologne will commence on August 17, to Friedrichshafen, Lisbon and Barcelona on August 18, to Charleroi on August 19 and to Milan and Sandefjord on August 20. Both the operational days and frequencies remain unchanged.
Wizz Air’s Belgrade expansion will mark the budget carrier’s biggest to date from the Serbian capital and will include significant capacity expansion with the replacement of its two Airbus A320 aircraft, with the larger A321 and the stationing of another jet of its type, for a total of three. Air Serbia, which will compete directly against Wizz Air on several of the new routes, has introduced a new ”joker card” service, offering special discounted fares to and from Belgrade starting at 38 euros for passengers whose flights on other airlines have been cancelled to and from selected destinations, among which are Oslo and Milan.
Flights to Belgrade are being progressively restored by foreign carriers, with Aegean Airlines, Aeroflot, Austrian Airlines, Belavia, easyJet, Flydubai, Lufthansa, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Pegasus Airlines, Qatar Airways, Swiss, TAROM, Transavia, Turkish Airlines and Wizz Air all maintaining operations. They will be joined by Etihad Airways, Air France and LOT Polish Airlines later this month. Meanwhile, Air Serbia continues to rebuild its network from the Serbian capital with services to Madrid and Barcelona to be resumed next Monday and Tuesday respectively. The carrier will also introduce a new service to Oslo next Thursday.
I guess that good news for Air Serbia
ReplyDelete* that is
DeleteFlew SZG-TZL the other day and the flight was PACKED.
DeleteI am not surprised by this, their first flight to SZG had 6 and 40 passengers while LCA resumed with 8 and 30-ish. Other gasto heavy destinations are doing better but I guess it will take time for demand to recover.
ReplyDeleteI think the biggest winner from all this is Belavia. They were among the first to resume BEG and these days they seem to exclusively operate E95/B733 to BEG. Last week one of their 733 flights was full with transfers. Good for them, always good to see a non-mainstream airline do well.
I like B2, they make BEG exotic so I am happy they are doing good.
Deletedo you have SZG nr for TZL and SKP maybe?
DeleteNo, sorry. Just the BEG ones and they are just for their first flights.
Delete40 passengers is not that bad since they had a month in a pandemic to sell these flights.
DeleteHope they start next month
ReplyDeleteThey will. It hasn't been the first time Wizz has delayed the launch of flights. Last year they delayed the launch of new Skopje routes because of a lack of planes.
Deleteand exactly for one month 1 july to 1 aug
DeleteThe important thing is that they launched flights in the end and I'm sure the same will happen here.
DeleteConsidering they put flights on sale 3 weeks before they started, I'm not surprised.
ReplyDeleteThe joker thing is interesting for JU. Will it apply to some of these Wizz flights?
ReplyDeleteObviously
DeleteOslo and Milan so far. Btw first JU flight to Oslo has around 60 and 110 passengers so far. I can imagine Wizz not resuming Torpp
DeleteThose are pretty good loads considering they too started selling tickets for these flights less than 2.5 weeks ago.
DeleteI think it was reported on here a while ago that many passengers used to transfer when travelling between Belgrade and Oslo. With connectivity butchered thanks to corona, many have probably welcomed additional flights between the two countries. It also helps that JU has a pretty good timetable.
DeleteI really do not understand you. LCCs like Wizz Air are operating hundreds of routes like this to some unknown villages and are still making profit thanks to diaspora and tourist. Most of people who will decide to book flights to Oslo will book the cheapest options and will not care where airport is because they dont know where airport actually is. They will always chose the cheapest option. I know a lot of people who book LCC flights to some cities like Paris, London and then they ended up somewhere 100km away just because most of people dont care before booking where they will land. They care about price. Then i really do not understand why do you think that Wizz will go away? Is Belgrade really so poor and small market so it cannot sustain 3 airlines on one route each operating 2-3 weakly flights? How is Belgrade "thriving" in the region ( i see lot these comments here) if it cannot sustain 9 weakly flights to one rich european coutry like Norway? I really dont think that any airline will cancel its flights from Oslo to BEG. Simply there is market for everyone, and for transfers, tourist, diaspora and bussines passangers.
Delete*business passangers
Delete*business passengers
DeleteWell, Norway is not a big country, around 5 million people. Also, not many people live in Oslo and this Torp airport they fly to is some 120 km away from the Norwegian capital city. Not overly convenient. Also what makes you think JU or DY are expensive on the route? You can fly on JU from OSL for around €150 which is not bad and which is much less than what Wizz Air rips you off when flying to EIN, BVA, MMX...........
DeleteFilling 230 seats under these circumstances won't be easy for them because their competitors have the upper hand. It's also a long sector so costs are not that low. Also, did you see their timetable? They fly on the same day as JU while not having a good airport or times.
Wizz is cheaper than JU in most of cases. All airlines have algorithms for price system so when you find cheap price on legacy airline and expensive on LCC that doesnt mean that legacy is cheper than LCC. Once i found one way ticket SPU-AMS-CDG with KLM for 70 € one way and was cheaper than EasyJets SPU-CDG 89€ ticket, but in most of cases legacy carriers are more expensive. If you found 150 € BEG-OSL-BEG that doesnt mean that price will always be so low. Do you understand what i wrote at 11:47. LCCs are making profit despite their airports are far away from cities where people want to fly because most of people do not know where these airports are but still will book these tickets. I still do not understand your point that Wizz will fail because of JU. If LCCs were failing because of small legacy carriers like JU just because of their operating system (operation times, airport location) , no. 1. airline in the Europe would not be LCC and worlds largest bank and investment fund JP Morgan would not invest in companies which are making airlines like this.
DeleteSo true, Wizz Air has been successful in Belgrade, love flying on them to CRL, RHO, CIA... not every route they launch will turn into a success story, this also applies to Oslo.
Delete@9.07 They have now added Barcelona too. Obviously in response to the Wizz delay (and Volotea cancellation).
DeleteOh and Brussels too!
DeleteI suppose you mean Vueling as Volotea never flew or intended to fly to BEG!
DeleteOslo will be successful. Currently you only have 9 weakly flights to Norway what is way to low for connecting a country of 7 milion people with country with 5 milion people.
Delete@16.05 yes sorry. Don't know how I got Volotea from Vueling.
DeleteAnd they persist on keeping Oslo on the same days as JU. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteWith DY not planning on leaving this market, I expect Wizz to completely fail on this route.
DeleteI guess we will see. The market in Norway is limited. Whereas to Germany Wizz can capture a whole different category of passengers (like those usually taking buses), with Norway it's a bit different.
DeleteNorway-ExYu is the the most thin scandinavian market in general
DeleteAgree with last anon
DeleteObviously when Scandinavia is made up of three countries. If you take the Nordic region then the situation is very different.
DeleteWhat's the difference? Aren't Nordic countries considered Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland?
DeleteScandinavia is basically Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Nordics include Finland and Iceland and usually the Faeroe Islands.
DeleteIn the text it says that Aeroflot restored service to BEG ..these flights are on random basis and can not be accounted as resumption of regular service.
ReplyDeleteThey operate twice per week, each week and you can book tickets through its website. So it's not random. Even Aeroflot lists Belgrade among its resumed routes.
DeleteJU also has a charter to Moscow today, I thought repatriation flights ended? Also Rusline canceled a flight to KRR last night but they operated a few flights in the past. Seems like JU had some O&D demand to KRR from BEG.
DeleteRusline is chartered by Velestroy construction company who has several projects across Russian and Kazakhstan so they use them to crew change.
DeleteWhat's interesting is that these days BEG and BUD have an almost same number of depratures. What's crazy is that TK has not been flying to BUD and they will resume flights in five days.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that surprising regarding TK. There are no Turks living in Hungary and they are restricted from entering Hungary. At the same time Turks can travel without restrictions to Belgrade.
Deletewhere is the "advance bookings" expert now to enlighten us that usually lurks here ? :D
ReplyDeletejokes aside just when i thought Wizz was the most reliable airline in our region this happened but you cannot announce flights only 3 weeks in advance i guess
He'd probably tell you that advance bookings were weak so they moved them a bit later.
DeleteThis expansion never made sense, not because of covid but because it also showed that they are running out of places to expand from BEG.... i mean, Turku? Oooook.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be surprised if they cancel this expansion and maybe increase some flights from BEG with planes from other bases.
They won't cancel the expansion.
DeleteWE LOVE YOU WIZZ AIR!
ReplyDeleteNot really.
Deleteonly doomed cabin crew and as well pink eyed young fos can write such stupidness with much love :)
DeleteWith the closing of Greek borders to Serbian citizens and other EU countries following soon because of the increase in Covid-19 cases it makes sense for W6 to delay launching.
ReplyDeleteWizz Air doesn't fly to Greece from Serbia.
DeleteInterestingly enough both JU and A3 keep on flying between the two countries even after the silly decision made by the Greek government.
DeleteBorder restrictions are changing all the time. For example Macedonians can no longer enter Italy. Not as in enter and you go to quarantine, but as in you are not allowed to enter the country at all. And same applies to anyone that has been there in the last 14 days.
DeleteHe is also talking about other countries implementing travel bans if Corona situation does not get under control.
DeleteW6 saw forward bookings and acted wisely.
I can only imagine what the comment section would look like if JU pulled something like this. It would be the end of the world.
DeleteWhy? Considering the situation JU would have made a good decision. These are very unique times in aviation and tourism business.
Deleteany info about passenger numbers at BEG after reopening, how’s the performance??
ReplyDeleteLess than 70K in June.
DeleteCouple of days ago Austrian Airlines announced they will cancel Vienna - Salzburg route and replace it with rail service to reduce pollution. Great example.
ReplyDeleteWizz has much larger emissions footprint than OS. When will Wizz cancel a route and replace it with rail service?
Wizz is flying much newer and less polluting aircraft than legacy carriers like OS, RO, JU etc. It these airlines that should be ...canceled.
DeleteWhen will Wizz cancel a route and replece it with rail service?
DeleteWhen they start operating short domestic regional routes with dashes because of connections.
Anon at 10:18 Carriers like RO and JU produce only a tiny fraction of emissions that Wizz produces. As a whole airline, Wizz Air aggregate pollution is also one of the highest of all airlines in the EXYU region and East Europe.
DeleteWhat really makes Wizz Air one of the worst environmental offenders within European airline industry is the growth rate of their total carbon emissions. Wizz CO2 emissions growth rate in the past couple of years have been in the very top in the EU and Wizz emissions projection growth for the years ahead based on their large aircraft order is trully monstrous.
While governments are likely to use funding to help other airlines flattent the curve on emissions by modernizing their fleets, replacing routes with rail service where possible and increase use of synthetic jet fuel based on captured carbon, those funds and efforts are likely not applicable to eco pariahs like Wizz. They have shown no self restraint for curbing total emissions so restictive measures to severely reduce or cancel the likes of Wizz should be no surprise.
The stupid is strong with this one!
DeleteAirlines like W6 who fly modern aircraft like the NEO produce far less CO2 emissions per passenger than airlines flying older generation aircraft like OS, JU, RO, OU etc. etc.
What part of total carbon emissions I was talking about do Wizz fanboys not understand? Wizz can fly brand new all-NEO fleet and still be a massive polluter in terms of total CO2 emissions due to fleet and network size/growth. In Europe, Wizz is dumping more tonnes of CO2 in the environment than any one of OS, JU, RO, OU and is adding more tonnes annualy than any one of them.
DeleteI wonder which of the new routes is selling best. Any predictions?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing the German routes
DeleteMy guess is also Hamburg or Cologne.
DeleteMilan probably too.
DeleteI still don't understand the logic of some of these routes by Wizz Air, especially the ones that they have already flown and failed.
ReplyDeleteHahahahah Why am I not surprised?!
ReplyDeleteThey were just making huge marketing campaign around!
Who really could believe they are able to ever fill up
They have problems crewing their flights. The crew must be removed from duties in case of covid passengers on their flights and they can not send replacement crew from anywhere else but BUD. For now as travel restrictions will be introduced soon most probably because of the rising number of cases in Serbia.
ReplyDeleteLoad of rubbish
DeleteAfter they were stupid enough to fire a lot of local crew.
Deletethere was always mice play under the carpet, you never know when you gonna be cut with knife :) just a matter of time. matter of nationalism, bad mood, your unlucky day or any combination with some enemies, as they possess so, against any reason or political things :) if they are cleaning that shitbags away, maybe atmosphere will become better - now either gays are cutting normals either normals are cutting gays :D who knows
DeleteWizz canceled its INI-VIE flights for the last week of July, anyone knows why?
ReplyDeleteINI basically requested it because of works on the ramp, those flights were at the same time as JU and FR. Wizz probably couldn't reschedule them so it was easier to cancel. I also think that they did it because there weren't that many passengers. Serbs are still banned from entering Austria.
DeleteAh i see, thanks for the info.
DeleteWhat about Serbs with EU residence? Are they allowed to transit trough Austria ei. fly to Vienna then continue onwards with bus/car?
Social media is flooded with JU ads regarding rescue fares. They are offering €35 tickets for anyone who had his flight cancelled by Wizz. This applies to BCN, MXP, BRU and OSL. It's really nice to have a reliable carrier such as JU around to pick up Wizz Air's slack.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, I have not managed to find a flight for the price they’re advertising.
DeleteThe super low fares are available for customers who already have a ticket on another airline and have been disrupted.
DeleteSee JU website
https://www.airserbia.com/en/information/flights/special-fares