Banja Luka Airport is negotiating with another airline over the introduction of flights, complementing Air Serbia’s and Ryanair’s scheduled operations to the city. The airport’s General Manager, Milan Račić, did not wish to reveal the company’s name, but said the carrier would add new routes from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s second largest city. Currently, Air Serbia maintains flights between Belgrade and Banja Luka, while Turkey’s Freebird Airlines is running charter flights from Antalya. As of today, Ryanair will resume its operations to the city with flights from Memmingen, followed by Charleroi on Monday. The budget airline’s remaining routes are planned to resume at the start of the 2020/2021 winter season, in late October, however, Mr Račić noted, “Depending on the epidemiological situation in the European Union and entry rules and regulations, we expect for the resumption of other flights earlier than planned, perhaps in September or early October”. Ryanair also intends to go ahead with the launch of its new route from Bergamo to Banja Luka on October 26, while its subsidiary Niki will inaugurate flights from Vienna on the same day.
The coronavirus pandemic has put a halt to Banja Luka’s impressive passenger growth over the past year, fuelled primarily by Ryanair. “Prior to the coronavirus crisis we discussed the possibility of an airline opening a base in Banja Luka. We will see what will happen after the pandemic. We also had discussions over the launch of an intercontinental service, and after this situation passes, we hope to resume those talks. A Turkish carrier is also interested in cooperating with Banja Luka Airport. For us, it was important to open up to the world last year and for some flights to begin. We must now seek out new airlines and partners and expand our destination network”, Mr Račić explained.
Commenting on plans for the development of a second commercial airport in the entity of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the town of Trebinje, Mr Račić said, “Personally I am disappointed that we didn’t finalise this project earlier. If we had Trebinje Airport, we would be able to immediately negotiate at least five new routes. Trebinje Airport has potential and should be built. It would bring benefits for tourism and the local economy in Herzegovina. It would not pose as competition to other nearby airports, instead, we would all cooperate and further boost travel in the region”. He added that prior to the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, plans were made to build an airport near Trebinje.
Wizz Air?
ReplyDeleteIs it realistic with their base in Tuzla?
DeleteYou never know with them, their base in TZL has not been performing that well before corona. I still think it would be FR though.
DeleteWizz has a base in Skopje but has flights from Ohrid and Pristina too. I don't see why flights from BNX would impact TZL.
DeleteBut TZL and BNX are much closer to each other than those cities are, no?
DeleteNo. And logic of Wizz Air is that every passengers should have flights at least 1,5 hours driving from their home.
DeleteCould be something similar like INI where you have W6 and FR.
Delete^ And Air Serbia too :D
DeleteGood to see they are not giving up and that more fights are coming.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways, BNX and INI are quite similar. Both had been sleepy for a while, relying on some random and incompetent airlines to keep them alive and then one day, overnight, both exploded.
ReplyDeleteWould love to see JU introduce BNX-ZRH on the ATR a few times per week.
7th Freedom? This will never happened.
DeleteWhy not? You honestly think Dodik wouldn't want a Serbian airline to fly on this route? lol
Deletewho cares about him. the swiss authorities will never allow it
DeleteWhy wouldn't they?
DeleteThey were talking about Egypt a while back (summer seasonal). It could be that. I don't think they count Turkey as intercontinental.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is Egypt, JU was supposed to introduce Hurgada this summer but they didn't have enough planes so the whole thing was dropped. Maybe Air Cairo will step in next year?
ReplyDeleteTZL and BNX killed OSI. I guess that's something OSI management should be thinking about.
ReplyDeleteZRH or BSL must come soon! This would have a significant impact on ZAG and TZL. Many people are using these airports to get to the BL region. Just my family has ca 15 return flights over ZAG per year. Then I know many others who are using TZL. There are still many people travelling by car to BL because of the missing direct flights. They claim that they still loose too much time (ZAG 2.5h/TZL 3h)
ReplyDeleteBut I thought ZAG-ZRH wasn't a big market? LX failed miserably while OU operates the Q400 twice a day. Not many seats on offer though. Could it be that most switched to Tuzla? There is no border so that should help as well.
DeleteSwiss cuted a lot of routes from Zurich just because they want to operate these with highest profitability. That doesnt mean there was no market in ZAG, SJJ and INI so they failed. While OU was never an airline who will show how much demand do you have, just look at ZAG to OTP route, people where quite often reporting full flights but OU never upgraded route from originaly 3pw Q400 seasonal service.
DeleteOnly difference is that in INI they had to compete with JU's FDH flight which was ten times cheaper. They only cut this route once JU launched FDH. In ZAG and SJJ they had no direct competition.
DeleteWhat's odd is that both ZAG and ZRH are star hubs with feed on both ends. I guess the market is not big enough for two players. Same like in LJU, Swiss returned only when JP died.
DeleteFDH had not even 40% LF
DeleteSo? That's around 60 passengers that no longer flew on LX. Also LF in summer was higher than that.
Deleteno it was never higher
DeleteSo how did Swiss suvrvived for 3 years in INI if current loads from Nis to that region are so bad?
DeleteAnon 14.05
DeleteDo you have a source to back that argument.
Maybe Swiss is a stronger brand than AirSerbia is? And you had as well probably some transfer PAX in ZRH.
DeleteMoscow could easily work from BNX. Hopefully Rossiya launches flights on the SSJ.
ReplyDeleteRemember the times when JP had 4 weekly flight with a CRJ200 LJU-BNX? That turned out great.
ReplyDeleteThose flights were subsidised and they were cut because there were 5 passengers per flight.
DeleteGranted it was a different time and people still needed visas to travel to the EU.
It also didn't help that JP charged €500 for flights to Europe.
DeleteOnce I was even alone in the plane. Felt like in a private jet
DeleteWhat about Iraero? They were planing to introduce flights to Moscow. What happend with them?
ReplyDeletePobeda and Pegasus should be a perfect fit with Moscow and Istanbul. As of flights to Germany, Ryanair is closing their bases at Hahn, Berlin and Dusseldorf. Wikl that affect BNX opperations?
ReplyDeleteRYR isn’t closing those bases, at least for now.
DeleteA Turkish carrier? Could it be Pegasus?
ReplyDeleteHope so especially since they don't fly to ZAG so they could cover the whole area with BNX.
DeleteI hope for Wizzair .
ReplyDeleteBasel - Banja Luka flights would be wonderful .
Fingers crossed !
Easyjet would even be better !
DeleteWe almost got BNX-HRG flights on JU this year but tour operators did not have enough time to organize everything, hopefully those materialize next year.
ReplyDeleteIt‘s time for a Swiss destination
ReplyDeleteWould be nice if Swiss or Edelweiss launched flights from Zurich.
DeleteA few years ago Edelweiss started ticket sales to Banja Luka but flights were cancelled before the launch.
DeleteI still think the Trebinje airport idea is an absolute waste of money.
ReplyDeleteGood news. Wish then success post corona.
ReplyDeleteIntercontinental service is probably Tehran (knowing this sounds funny) - didn't some Iranian airline actually already announce a new route to BNX at first only to cancel it shortly thereafter?
ReplyDeleteThey moved it to BEG because BNX didn't want them.
DeleteGreat news. Hopefully London, Malmo, Paris, Zürich and Moscow
ReplyDelete