Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport handled just over 600.000 passengers during the January - May period, representing a decrease of 35.3% on the same period last year and 69.7% of the pre-pandemic 2019. The airport’s figures began to pick up in April, as its main customer, Air Serbia, started growing its operations, while foreign carriers restored both frequencies and capacity, and new routes were added. June is set to become the airport’s busiest since the start of the global health emergency with another three airlines resuming flights to the city, including Tunisair, TAROM and Vueling over the past ten days, as well as Air France, which will restore services next Wednesday.
Since the start of the year, Nordwind Airlines has commenced operations to the Serbian capital, from Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as Luxair from Luxembourg, KLM from Amsterdam, Wizz Air from Hamburg and Abu Dhabi, Air Montenegro from Podgorica and Tivat, as well as SkyUp from Kiev, while Air Serbia launched new routes to Geneva and Rostov-on Don. Out of those, Ukraine’s SkyUp Airlines has suspended its operations between Kiev and the Serbian capital due to poor demand, with the carrier unable to compete against Windrose Airlines on the route. In the coming period, Aeroflot will introduce flights from St Petersburg, Wizz Air from Sandefjord and Eurowings from Stuttgart, with new additions expected soon. Furthermore, a number of airlines have begun increasing frequencies and capacity on existing services, coinciding with the European Union’s decision to approve the lifting of entry requirements into the block for Serbian citizens. Among those adding more seats or flights are Air Serbia, Wizz Air, KLM, Lufthansa, Austrian and Qatar Airways.
Commenting on the latest developments, Belgrade Airport noted, “We remain optimistic that this summer season will be significantly better than last year, especially if we take into consideration the speed at which the vaccination process is taking place in our country and the region. The national carrier, Air Serbia, has over 800 charter flights planned from our airport to Turkey, Greece, Tunisia and Egypt during the summer. Furthermore, we have several new airlines and routes during the second quarter”. This month, the airport opened a testing facility in its terminal 1 building, enabling departing, arriving and connecting passengers to undertake both a Covid-19 antigen and PCR test. Furthermore, the airport’s 24-hour post office can issue those vaccinated against the virus in Serbia with a Digital Green Certificate, which holds information on Covid vaccinations, recovery and testing. The certificate is currently recognised by Greece, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, with the majority of the European Union set to follow suit on July 1.
The airport is continuing its full-scale expansion project despite the pandemic, recently opening its new E platform, which forms part the first phase of its apron extension project. The new platform, located across the general aviation parking, covers an area of almost 25.000 square metres and can handle three aircraft with a wingspan of up to 36 metres. The new apron allows for the upgrade and optimisation of aircraft handling capacities at remote stands, which is now becoming common due to the closure of a number of A pier gates due to their reconstruction and expansion.
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| Location of the new apron (in red) |
Nice to see demand coming back. Good to see Vueling resuming Belgrade today.
ReplyDeleteNice. Seems KLM is also increasing capacity from E195 to B737-700 after a few weeks of flights.
ReplyDeleteNot just that but many flights are scheduled on the B738.
DeleteLH from FRA has made the A320 the default aircraft more or less.
DeleteI was at Ada Ciganlija yesterday and between 10-12am a lot of plane spotting: YU-ARB, KLM 737, FZ, Montenegro albino, OS, LH, 2-3xW6, 5-6xYU 319, 2-3xATR's... Heavy traffic saturday morning.
DeleteSaturday morning is always busy because that's when people who left the US and Canada on Friday arrive. :)
DeleteBtw Austrian will have 17 weekly flights which i think is extremely impressive!
Not sure if they still have Q400, but if they did, it would be great to see them 2-3 times at KVO.
DeleteNope the Q400 was retired some two weeks ago.
DeleteJU already flies to VIE, I would rather get LH from MUC on the E90. That route could work quite nicely especially with transfers.
DeleteThe more the merrier at KVO ! Indeed, JU flies to VIE, however no connections from VIE. Interchange or route specific code share agreement would be great.
DeleteIt would but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Then again it would be cool if JU would launch BEG-KVO so that they can offer connections.
DeleteWhat are the projected passenger numbers until the end of the year. Seems certain it will be over 1 million at least.
ReplyDeleteIt's very hard to predict in this sort of environment.
DeleteWhat airline are yet to return to BEG that flew before the pandemic?
ReplyDeleteAlitalia, Red Wings and Etihad.
DeleteAlitalia (or its reincarnation) won't be back until 2022.
DeleteWho knows about Etihad, especially if Air Serbia launches Dubai in September
DeleteAir France, Mahan Air, Redwings, Norwegian, Croatia from Split, Easyjet from Basel and Berlin, all the Israeli airlines have also stopped.
DeleteAir Serbia would be stupid to launch Dubai .
DeleteIt would be nice if you read the article and actually noticed that Air France begins flights in 3 days. Easyjet starts Berlin on Friday and Basel on 2nd of July. Mahan Air suspended flights to Belgrade much before the Covid pandemic because Serbia reintroduced visas for Iranians.
DeleteMahan Air actually would have flown to Belgrade last summer twice a week with the A310 !
DeleteI was surprised because as you say visas were reintroduced the year before .
I guess Serbia just became popular enough to be viable even with visa .
If anything we get Conviasa on a technical stop on its way back from IKA.
Delete^ Mahan will the earliest return next year but it depends on the epidemical situation.
DeleteAnyone know how Luxair is performing?
ReplyDeleteLooking at the fares they seem to be doing ok.
DeleteFinally they made it possible to do the testing at the airport.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't 35% growth a bit low compared to last year since there was the total collapse in April and May?
ReplyDeleteIt isn't growth it is decline. Very few airports in the world in the first few months had growth. During Q1 last year BEG had almost a million passengers. That's just the first three months.
DeleteSo if I got it right, in Q1 Belgrade had 288.000 passengers meaning in April and May it handled around 320.000?
DeleteYes. In April they had 132,144 in May it was more than that especially because of Orthodox Easter.
DeleteToday alone six JU flights to TIV, nost quite packed
ReplyDeleteMontenegro will be a popular holiday choice this year.
DeleteIt always was .
DeleteDo you know why gates between A1 and A4 are out of use? Thanks
ReplyDeleteIt's written in the article... They are expanding them and building an extra floor. You can even see it on the photo.
DeleteWhen we landed the other day we parked at A5 and that area will look quite nice. The whole terminal will change its look which is pretty cool.
DeleteDepartures today:
ReplyDeleteOTP: 111
BEG: 70
BUD: 61
SOF: 53
SKG: 50
TIA: 39
ZAG: 36
What I found extremely interesting is that compared to Q1, BEG managed to reduce the difference with SOF to just around 100.000 passengers. If I remember well they welcomed 720.000 passengers so far.
BEG is crushing SKG this year and even in May they managed to handle the same number of passengers. In the first five months its still 320.000 vs 600.000.
BUD isn't publishing its 2021 numbers but in May they had 88.000 passengers, so still less than BEG... by a wide margin.
OTP is killing it so far this year but they did not publish their numbers since Q1. They are ahead of everyone else.
BEG has continued to widen the margin with ZAG. In the first five months BEG had over 600.000 while ZAG welcomed 236.439 passengers.
Overall all these are solid numbers for BEG and hopefully this covid becomes an opportunity for them to consolidate their position in the region and to keep on pushing towards 10 million after covid.
Don't forget that ZAG numbers will sky rocket with the arrival of FR.
DeleteAs for SOF, there is a huge boom in charters especially Greece and Turkey plus strong domestic traffic to both VAR and BOJ. FR announced 3 routes.
SKG will also boom due to the more eased entry to Greece.
We will need to wait by September to see the real results.
Agree, Belgrade still has a lot of work to do because its not all that rosy as people here on this blog paint it.
DeleteSofia has been performing well the whole year but Belgrade is catching up.
DeleteOn another Croatian portal they reported some FR numbers and they are not that great. inaugural from Milan had 76 and 110 passengers.
Thessaloniki missed the summer season so I don't see them catching up with belgrade which is ahead by some 300.000 passengers.
I dont see Belgrade ever catching up.
DeleteNo chance.
It only has a single lcc base while their competitors have at least two.
Well just because you don't see it happening doesn't mean it won't. Don't forget that Sofia has been stagnating for a few years after the boom. Belgrade on the other hand has been growing at a steady rate for a while now and this year BEG has been performing better than SOF.
DeleteNow we are down to a difference of some 130.000 and that's without all the July increases BEG will experience.
Funny how you focus your argument on LCCs while ignoring the fact that BEG has an active legacy carrier and a hub system while Sofia doesn't.
I would also add that people went on about Gullivair and how they will be a threat to BEG and JU and now they are down to just operating SOF-AYT on the ATR once a week.
DeleteTomorrow there is going to be another record at BEG with 80 flights!
DeleteSOF has been performing well since the start of the year. Don't forget that neither BA nor SU have not yet returned for instance. There will be huge traffic to Italy next month especially BRI, BLQ, CTA, ROM and of course W6 6 new Greek destinations and new FR flights to OTP, ZAG and MLA.
DeleteLH will resume 4 daily FRA service while LO its 3 daily weekly one within weeks.
As for ZAG's lower factor, this is quite normal as the flights were launched a bit too late. It'll take them a year to mature, especially STN and CRL. After all, ZAG is an EU capital with a not so bad urban population.
And are you implying BEG has nothing going on right now? I mean you are presenting a one sided argument. If you were impartial then you would be presenting both sides of the argument.
DeleteAt the end of the day BEG reduced the difference to just 100.000, that's the most powerful in BEG's favor right now.
Btw since we are talking about Belgrade, Sofia and Zagreb, here are the departures for tomorrow:
DeleteBEG 80
SOF 45
ZAG 31
What are the numbers when domestic flights are taken out of the equation?
DeleteZAG: 22
DeleteSOF: 43
More good news, from next week Wizz is increasing DTM from 3 to 5. Demand must be huge since they are sending the A321.
DeleteDTM is operated by A320 from Skopje. Runway restrictions at DTM.
DeleteThey must be doing good business then.
DeleteWhen you count departures, you'd better compare the aircraft type. 1 ATR72 departure is not the same as A321 neo :)
DeleteBEG may have more departures but most morning ones are with ATR72. 1 A321 = 3 ATRs
Sure but then you also have to factor in the fact that BEG has widebodies, Sofia doesn't. Also, besides JU's three ATRs and RO's two weekly flights no one else sends the ATR.
DeleteAs for A321s, BEG has a lot of those especially now that Wizz has two stationed at the airport. Nice try though.
Just to add, the four Wizz planes that are active in Sofia, two are A321neo and 2 are A320. Ouch.
DeleteAre you sure? Check last Friday departures: 3 A321 and 2 A320s. W6 usually has 6 stationed planes.
DeleteFR has 3 based aircraft but still had 11 flights operated today ones arriving from other bases.
Speaking of widebodies, SOF also had 2 operating A330s to Maldives and Dominican Republic in winter and there are regular Omni cargos almost daily with B767 arriving from Washington.
-ZAG numbers will sky rocket with the arrival of FR
DeleteNot really. We are talking about departures and not passengers. Arrival of first two ZAG based FR planes is late August and September. Peak season will be over by then. Even with two planes, FR will probably have 5-7 departures per day. If we generously add 7 to current 36 daily departures ZAG will have just 43 daily departures. That's higher than TIA but still way below others on that list. Skyrocket is exaggeration.
You just give ZAG 1-2 more years. BGY is already 4 weekly and STN daily and this is just the start during Covid with 738s and not Atrs. It was never so cheap to reach ZAG today compared to other dates in the past.
DeleteAnon 19.28
DeleteI am talking about today and the information from Fr24. If they increased the number of A320s then it can only mean having three 321s was too much capacity for a city like Sofia.
Those that you mention were charters and did not operate on a regular basis, the widebodies BEG has are scheduled, regular flights on widebody aircraft.
-You just give ZAG 1-2 more years
DeleteTake all the time you need. Don't forget other airports will not be sitting still, waiting for ZAG to catch up. Other airports will keep growing and increasing the gap.
Exactly, just like LJU finally got a flight to Dubai and we all know how many Slovenes used to fly from ZAG in the past.
DeleteDamn... KLM is absolutely on fire.
ReplyDeleteToday: B738
Monday: B738
Tuesday: B739 (!)
Wednesday: -
Thursday: B737
Friday: B737
Satuday: B737
Sunday: B737
Nice. Really glad the route is going well for them.
DeleteKL 739 has 188 seats! Nice. They have just 5 of them in the fleet.
DeleteI see KLM going double daily next year.
DeleteJU should be alarmed!
I see that too. I think next summer we will see double daily E90 on KL.
DeleteJU should use whatever opportunity there is left to claim more slots at Schiphol. Otherwise, if they want to fight back next year, it could be too late.
DeleteI would say this is a very good result and quite unexpected.
ReplyDeleteIs the new apron the first new project to open since the expansion began?
ReplyDeleteNo, they opened new bus gates.
DeleteI want Vinci to be ambitious in Belgrade and to bring Air Arabia, Air Arabia Maroc, Air Arabia Egypt, Gulf Air, Saudia, Flyadeal, Flynas, Oman Air, Egypt Air, Kuwait Airways and Jazeera.
ReplyDeleteOMG more ambition is not possible!
Delete: O
Most realistic is MS from the list, their A220 is perfect for the route.
DeleteAir Arabia Egypt could replace Air Cairo on the Hurghada route and maybe start Sharm el Sheikh too
DeleteAir Arabia originally planned flights in the past but we're halted due to the lack of demand.
DeleteThat was out of Sharjah, and why would anyone need to replace Air Cairo?
DeleteWe dont know if it was lack of demand.
DeleteCould also have been that Serbs still needed visa at that time.
If Wizz Air can fly to Abu Dhabi just for O&D without any transfers then Air Arabia should also be able to fill twice weekly flights to Sharjah.
Sharjah which actually is Dubais second airport.
+ 2
Delete+3
DeleteAny possibility of a second low cost company making BEG its new base?
ReplyDeleteEasyjet would be wonderful!
Don't think so especially now that Wizz introduced two A321. I would love for U2 to introduce ORY-BEG though.
DeleteDon't know what else they could introduce that could work, maybe AMS.
Napoli has an Easyjet minibase + Ryanair + Wizz !
DeleteTwo A321 are not much.
Still room for much more.
Anyone know why Wizz operates LTN with a British plane and not from Belgrade?
DeleteI think Napoli could work in summer quite well.
Easyjet could connect Belgrade with Milan, Palermo, Catania, Madrid, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, Lisbon, London, Manchester, Paris ORY, Lyon, Toulose .
DeleteSome of these routes are currently unserved (Lisbon, Manchester), some are charters (Palermo, Catania) and some have only one single carrier with low frequencies (Madrid).
Why cheer for Easyjet to open new routes when Air Serbia already serve some of those and could open some of other ones post Covid?
DeleteAir Serbia and Easyjet easily can coexist beside each other. Competition is not a bad thing. Quite the opposite.
DeleteCompetition is a great thing, but you won't be hearing those words from OU management.
DeleteIt's always a good thing to be competition as it lowers the average fare.
DeleteLowcosters disagree. They hate competing against each other on the same route. U2, FR and W6 all serving identical city pairs? No, they hate competition as it lowers average fee.
DeleteWhen the new floor will be inaugurated between the gates A1-A4? What about the gates between A10-A5. They look so desperate.
ReplyDeleteIn Septemver. Gates A5 and A6 are exactly the same as A1-A4.
DeleteImpossible to have new floor open to passengers in September. We will be lucky to have complete new floor including new C gates by February.
DeleteThe C terminal extension is scheduled to be opened in September.
DeleteAbsolutely no chance of C extension being opened by then.
DeleteTell that to Vinci. They are already installing airbridges btw
DeleteIt's a pity that KBP didn't work well. The flights lasted less than 3 months after their launch if I'm not mistaken.
ReplyDeleteYes but Windrose has been flying for 8 months and has increased frequencies. Does not help that Ukraine went into another lockdown till late August..
DeleteViceroy opened a five star hotel in Kopaonik, first hotel it opened in Europe. Second will be in Portugal. Hopefully this further boosts business traffic between Serbia and the US.
ReplyDeletehttps://seenews.com/news/us-based-viceroy-hotels-opens-five-star-complex-in-serbias-kopaonik-744635
What could be new additions mentioned in text? I hope it is BT or some Middle East destination.
ReplyDeleteWhy wizz dont open beg to varna or burgas
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile LH's A320 will be boarding from A7b gate, I guess their plane is parked at the E remote stands. Issue with the lack of airbridges continues. God, we need those extra gates ASAP.
ReplyDeleteI just noticed that OS was also parked on the remote stand! lol
DeleteGate A6 is not the same as gates between A5-c6. It is an older one. Not?
DeleteWhy charter flights don't use remote stands, then more gates would be available for scheduled fligts.
A6 is like the old ones, yes. I guess charters use airbridges for two reasons:
Delete1. the plane comes from a scheduled flight before operating a charter.
2. airline is actually willing to pay extra for it.
3. I think new bus gates can't welcome 144+ passengers.
Three reasons, lol.
DeleteGood work
ReplyDelete