NEWS FLASH
Pristina Airport will see the highest volume of flights to Switzerland within 24 hours, tomorrow, July 17. A total of 25 rotations are planned from Kosovo to Switzerland, of which fourteen will be to Basel, nine to Zurich and two to Geneva. A number of airlines will be running the flights, with some operating on behalf of tour operators. Edelweiss Air, Wizz Air, easyJet, Helvetic Airways, Chair Airlines, Enter Air, ETF Airways, ALK Airlines and GP Aviation are some of the carriers that will be maintaining tomorrow’s flights. Edelweiss will deploy its 314-seat Airbus A340-300 jet from Zurich to Pristina. The flights cater primarily for the Kosovar diaspora in Switzerland. Tomorrow’s operations will outstrip pre-pandemic records.
Fantastic news for PRN! Full steam ahead!
ReplyDeleteTodays widebody has two-hundred-seventy-five booked ex Zurich
ReplyDeleteThe traffic between Switzerland and Kosova is so high that even Polish, Bulgarian and Croatian companies are operating! This is insane!
ReplyDeleteYeah on behalf of the famous tour operators
DeleteCould you share more info? I thought this traffic is due to huge diaspora. What tour operators are you referring to?
DeleteIt is all diaspora. Kosovo tour operators, mostly mafia families hire entire planes and then sell tickets.
DeleteThe reason why they hire foreign airlines is because these companies are registered in the EU which makes access to EU markets very straightforward and easy.
DeleteBut yes it's true that the demand for flights comes mainly from the diaspora and even in the newly opened airport in Kukes the 1st ever destination was Zurich which is already served by 2 airlines.
Had no clue about this, thanks for sharing. Very interesting info. Those tour operators must be gaining a fortune because this traffic for a small country like Kosova is insane.
Delete"The reason why they hire foreign airlines"... They should hire all these planes owned by Kosovar airlines xD
DeleteCH-XK market is clearly enormous, which shows that Pristina is just gasto airport, no demand for anything or from anywhere where there's no diaspora.
ReplyDeleteYes they clearly failed to diversify their offer. I guess SKP is celebrating
DeleteWell, that's always been pretty obvious, didn't teach us anything new. Is there anything wrong with that though, should we not take it into consideration as the 2nd busiest airport in ex-yu because most traffic is gasto?
DeleteUnfortunately when you look at all ex-YU airports, most are provincial but one which manages to move away from gasto routes and actually diversify its offer. At some point you need to think of attracting other customers than gastos.
DeleteNot true. There is no city in Europe that has no flights to Prishtina. Only missing Middle East flights and East Europe. When interest is not as high.
DeleteYou have two airlines operating from London, this year started Amsterdam and Rome flights. Paris is been covered, two airlines via Vienna, Frankfurt etc. All major European Airports have flights to Prishtina. Only on Friday there were 70 flights to Prishtina. With expansion of runway, they are looking for transatlantic flights. What suprise me that there are no flight to Middle East, when Turkish Airlines figures shows that the demand is there.
You just proved my point. AMS and BRU are not covered by some well known LCC or a legacy carrier but rather by some random charter carrier. All other Balkan airports have either FR/W6 or their own national airline flying from these markets. From what I see on Wikipedia besides Oslo there are no flights to the Nordic countries.
DeleteFrom well known brands, in PRN you have: BA on a seasonal basis, easyJet, Eurowings, Norwegian, Pegasus, Swiss, Turkish Airlines and Swiss.
Even passenger numbers before covid were modest in wider European terms with 2.3 million passengers. I am sorry but numbers are just not there to prove that PRN is some relevant European airport. It's maybe on par with TSR.
Reiseburo mafia does not work with airlines like KLM, Wizz Air... they like those strange charter airlines.
DeleteAgain not true. There are legacy carriers to Prishtina Airport: Turkish, Austrian, Swiss, Norwegian.... SAS started seasonal flights to Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Oslo and Stockholm, British with London. Both they started during COVID-19 area and was not expected during this period to have regular flights outside season. But this might change will post COVID area. What happen with Norwegian that started seasonal with Helsinki and Olslo, now they have regular flights. TUI for Brussel and Amsterdam is not a mafia carrier. Most of these lease carriers flight to Switzerland.
DeleteFor Basel we have Enter air / ETF airways with 738 and galistair A321 9H-VDB / ALK airlines / GP aviation with 734 and 733 / Malta medair A320 and tomorrow Heston airlines from lithuania with A320 LY-VUT
ReplyDeleteIs this crazy traffic only in summer and NY/Xmas? I still find it unbelievable to have so many EU countries. I mean Lithuanian Heston and Bulgarian ALK are focused on leisure charter, the same goes for Croatia's ETF!
Deletein Basel we have Pristina flights all over the year..but peaks periods christmas ostern and all holidays..last christmas we have in one day 26 returns flight from Pristina to Basel in one day..
ReplyDeleteSoon Kukes Airport will overtake most Ex-Yugo airports
ReplyDeleteAlready in top 20! Great success!
DeleteSo 16 flight basel-pristina on saturday and 14 flights sunday
Deletewow incredible !! keep it up all summer
ReplyDelete