NEWS FLASH
Ukrainian carrier Windrose Airlines will discontinue flights between Kiev and Skopje, just two months after launching the service. The airline has scheduled its last flights for this Thursday and Sunday, with another two rotations to be operated on March 18 and March 21, after which the route will be terminated. Windrose was the first carrier to link Skopje with Ukraine. The airline recently launched a number of new routes to former Yugoslav markets including Zagreb, Podgorica and Belgrade. All three will continue to run, with services to the Serbian capital increased from two to three weekly from the start of the 2021 summer season in late March. Zagreb and Podgorica will be maintained twice per week.
Not surprised.
ReplyDeleteI dont see demand between macedonia and ukraine
ReplyDeleteJust shows that the dominant traffic in SKP is mainly to Germany and Sweden. They should've tried OHD instead but during summer.
DeleteMaybe the government can give subsidies to Wizz to replace them.
ReplyDeleteAegean tried - gone
ReplyDeleteWindrose tried - gone
Seems that SKP will remain Wizz central for the time being
Maybe even flydubai or qatar will be gone, they werent doing great even before corona
DeleteIf KBP doesn't work, why not try Moscow instead? Pobeda or those Russian airlines similar to BEG.
ReplyDeleteAnd who will fly on this route? I dont think Pobeda will start with b737 that has 189 seats. Even Aeroflot doesnt want to try this route with ssj100 that has less than 90 seats. Unlike Serbia, Montenegro and Slovenia that have a lot of Russian tourist, North Macedonia doesnt have them. And for connections via SVO to Asia, it also probably wont work, as someone else mentioned in previous comment that FlyDubai and Qatar didnt have a lot of passengers on their flights
DeleteSo which type of tourists visit the country then? I am not talking about Ohrid. If Athens and Kyiv failed, which other destination can make it?
DeletePrague also failed with OK, so maybe Bucharest or Dublin?
Top 5 visitor arrivals by nationality in 2019 were: Turkey, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Poland. And from other countries there were total of around 760k visitors. For OTP maybe 3x p/w, but not with high density a320 . For DUB i dont see demand
DeleteInteresting. Yeah, wonder why Tarom never considered launching any flights. I guess Bulgaria is too close and visitors most likely arrive using land transport. Lets hope we see some new airlines this year.
DeleteOur government also counts people who transit as tourists that is who spend s few hours in the country. That's why there are so many Poles.
DeleteYou are discussing tourism in february in the middle of a pandemic ... couldnt be more morbid
DeleteNor Moskva nor other city in the world will work now ...
@18.04 lol nice try mr.notorious. you are surely from Macedonia!
DeleteMacedonia in contrast to some countries only counts tourists and not arrivals on their borders as well (Its up to you to learn whats the difference between them). Polish tourist are all over the Balkans (not even mentioning direct flights to OHD) but I sense you have zero knowledge in the tourism industry in the region
Anon 18:04
DeleteMaybe partly true, but these last 4-5 years Poles are like locals in OHD from May till October.
Small part from Katowice and Warszawa (LO+E4) flights, but many by bus or car.
Still don't understand the logic why there are no flights to Moskva. Were there any attempts to materialise them? SU can still give it a try with the Sukhoi 3 weekly as a start....
DeleteStill don't understand the logic why would there be flights to Moskva. I doubt any Russian carrier would even think about any adventure to SKP during pandemic, when even key routes haven't been restored. You need a reality check.
DeleteLike someone mentioned, the market in SKP is not big, demand for Kiev is simply not there. Same with Moscow. Unfortunately many people here overestimate the market size. Besides Wizz Air, no one seems to do extremely well and to sustain multiple daily flights. Maybe only TK but they are masters of dumping.
DeleteNot surprised.
ReplyDeleteWindrose is giving free tickets to Belgrade:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.instagram.com/p/CKlX6EQppHs/?igshid=1lpicy4errgay
@18.55 I do think demand to SOF exists. I think SKP-SOF is the perfect route for an ATR running double daily (morning and evening flight.) It allows for day trips in both directions, and demand can be stimulated by any reasonable airfare. In the past, this route was served by Air Bulgaria, but their tickets were priced $200-300 RT and that's ridiculous for a flight this short. Bus service between the two countries is slower than one would expect (5+ hours) for the straight line distance we are discussing. An ATR should be able to do the flight in 35-40 min. The slower turboprop doesn't penalize you too much in travel time due to the short distance, and you can realize huge operational savings over a Dash 8 or any jet.
ReplyDeleteI would add SKP-SKG in the same category as well.
Who is going to fly these ATRs to SOF and SKG?
DeleteActually FB courageously are launching SOF-SKG this summer for the very first time even though distance is quite short between both cities, similar to SKP - you can take the train, bus or drive. Thing is if they do the same with SKP it'll need a smaller jet to fill and that's hard with their E190s.
Deletemaybe they will restart flights in spring/summer to Ohrid for the tourist season ! covid vaccines should be full swing by then
ReplyDelete