Low cost carrier easyJet is significantly reducing its operations to cities in the former Yugoslavia over the coming months with some routes to be either discontinued or temporarily suspended. Within the region, the airline maintains winter operations to Pristina, Belgrade, Skopje and Ljubljana, with its flights to Kosovo the only ones to be unaffected. The airline will implement the most cuts out of Belgrade, from which it will be temporarily suspending all of its operations from mid-January until early February. Flights from Basel and Geneva will be put on hiatus for just over two weeks, while services from Berlin will be terminated based on the airline’s existing plans. The last service is scheduled for January 10. The route will continue to be maintained by Air Serbia.
easyJet’s recently launched service between Geneva and Skopje will be temporarily suspended between January 17 and February 4. However, at this point, the budget carrier has not scheduled any flights between the two cities over the 2022 summer season, with the last service set to operate on March 25. Flights are due to return from the 2022/2023 winter season in late October of next year. Further changes remain highly likely. Elsewhere, easyJet will reduce its operations between London Gatwick and Ljubljana to just one flight per week between January 9 and February 11, after which services will grow back to between four and five per week.
easyJet recently announced it was terminating its seasonal summer flights from London Luton, Milan Malpensa and Toulouse to Dubrovnik, while services from Belfast to Split have also been cut. This is on top of the routes that were discontinued earlier this year, which included services from Venice and London Stansted to both Dubrovnik and Split, as well as from Southend to Dubrovnik and Newcastle to Split. easyJet has also cancelled plans to introduce flights from London Luton to Ljubljana. Services were initially scheduled to commence last year but have been constantly delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, easyJet’s sole remaining service to Ljubljana is London Gatwick. This represents a significant retreat for the airline from the Slovenian market, which, prior to the pandemic and following the collapse of Adria Airways in September 2019, was the country’s largest carrier. Last year, easyJet terminated its flights from both London Stansted and Berlin to Ljubljana.
Sad, especially considering their presence in ex-Yu rather small outside of summer in Croatia.
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't Berlin seem to work for them in this region? Furst they cut Ljubljana, not BEG.
ReplyDeleteSeems to be working for them to PRN.
DeleteWe can now all be honest and say that it's not ljubljanas management to blame. Low cost carriers are becoming more and more unreliable and more and more revenue hungry.
ReplyDeletetbh i was hoping summer 22 will be close to normal but it looks like it will be far from that.
DeleteAviation will never return to how it was pre-pandemic.
Deletewow that's a shame :(
ReplyDeleteJust another example of how corona will have a long lasting impact on airlines. For those that think everything will magically go back to normal.
ReplyDeleteCould Wizz Air take over these routes?
ReplyDeleteI don't see W6 taking over the Berlin route. As for the others, perhaps.
DeleteWhy not? They fly there from Skopje and Tuzla
DeleteWizz will operate BSL-BEG without discontinuations.
Delete^ How is that related to Berlin?
DeleteDepressing.
ReplyDeleteLJU keeps on winning!
ReplyDeleteLOL
DeleteAt least the flights aren't suspended. Could have been worse. Last winter we had no LCCs.
DeleteI don't get their approach with Skopje. They won't fly there the whole of summer?? What are they smoking?
ReplyDeleteIt is very odd. Even on their website it says route won't operate during summer 2022 :/
DeleteYou would think that is when they would have the most traffic.
DeleteAlso one would guess they got the incentive from TAV to operate at least for the full year.
DeleteMaybe they are simply not performing well on the route.
DeleteIf that was the case they would not have scheduled flights from winter 2022/23 already.
DeleteSame happened to MXP from TIA and they ended up terminating it completely. Hopefully it won't happen in this case.
DeleteThe winter flights are loaded because they just initially copy the previous winter timetable and then they manually make changes.
DeleteI guess the majority of passengers from Switzerland to Skopje are from Kosovo, and Kosovo is very well served to Switzerland so there is no point.
DeleteIs there no Macedonian diaspora in Switzerland? With all these flights to PRN nowadays i don't see the point of flying to SKP.
Delete@10.06 why do you even reply to him trolling?
DeleteIt was just a question. I genuinely don't know if there are many Macedonians living around GVA that can supply these flights. Albanians maybe?
Deletethe approach is simple they use the summer slots for other seasonal routes for swiss citizens. Balkans routes is always the second choice. Edelweiss did the same (they have more freq in winter then in summer to SKP). Wizz and Chair are pretty much very happy about it.
DeleteI agree tho. my first reaction was as well "they must be insane"
Thanks for the explanation. Makes a bit more sense now.
DeleteThat makes no sense. They will either publish the summer schedule soon or terminate the flights altogether.
DeleteJust checked that easyJet fares from SKP to GVA are dirty cheap. Don't think there might be much demand after all?
Deleteeasy jet have to fly Skopje-Basel ..it's a bigger market than Geneve....on The euroairport home page they are 4 Weekly flight from Basel to Skopje beging 28 march EZS1149/1150
Delete17 comments in and nobody has any clue yet, with highlights being kafana-like market assumptions. Never change, anonymous crowd @ exyu.
DeleteSKP is closed for month and a half during spring and that clashed with their scheduling so they left it to be resolved in a couple of months. It's likely they will put peak summer in the schedule once they've dealt with the current Omicron onslaught.
Really unprofessional for an airline of easyjet's size not to already have a flight schedule in place for summer for Skopje just because airport will inaccessible to them for 2 months.
DeleteAnd btw Ohrid will be offered as alternative, which they could use.
DeleteOh Anon 22:06 - come on, man....why are you twisting the facts? easyJet was quite optimistic about GVA but they should have tried BSL instead just like anon 20:17 said.
DeleteAlso if they know the airport will be closed as you say, why launch "temporary" flights and then leave it just like that until October 2022 when the new flights are bookable (IF they are bookable). The fact is that SKP has already been covered 97% by Wizzair and the rest and it would be difficult to secure new flights like we saw what happened with Kyiv, Peterburg, Barcelona, Dubai and Doha to name a few.....
Now we will get again 250+ Euro fares to Berlin from Belgrade.
ReplyDeleteYes it would be interesting to monitor JU prices on this route now. They were very competitive and rather cheap.
DeleteWell I guess their tactic worked. They got rid of easy.
DeleteIf you can't afford it, don't fly. There is no god given route to over cheap flights.
DeleteWhat's going on with easyjet? Last year they also cut a lot of routes to ex-Yu. None of them were restored.
ReplyDeleteIt's affected by Covid like every other airline in the world.
DeleteTheir finances are quite poor.
Deleteeasyjet's that is.
DeleteGood news for JU I guess.
ReplyDeleteCertainly. One less competitor to Germany.
DeleteCrazy how easyjet has withdrawn from the Slovenian market more and more.
ReplyDeleteIt is reflective of their treatment from the Slovenian government. They were the only one "disqualified" from receiving state subsidy while other airlines like Swiss, which did not even meet the subsidy criteria as they did not fly to Ljubljana got money.
DeleteEasyjet is just broke and can not afford flying everywhere. Now they only want to fly to a specific airport if governments give them money or if there is a huge opportunity. Easyjet is loosing big against Ryanair and Wizzair
DeleteEasyjet is losing to Wizz Air.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they were ever "wining" against easyjet in ex-Yu anyway.
DeleteWasn't Wizz Air offering to buy them just a few months ago?
DeleteIt was more of a dummy offer for PR purposes.
DeleteHow was it PR? I mean we are talking about big money potentially being lost for a PR stunt had easyjet accepted.
DeleteThey knew the offer would never be accepted.
Deletedemand is still soft and getting worse at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling they will schedule flights Berlin-Belgrade in a month or two. Also I think they will eventually schedule Geneva flights to Skopje for the summer.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed.
DeleteFingers crossed. They did that once with GVA-BEG. They didn't load schedule around 2 weeks before.
Deletewow they have a very light presence in ex-Yu in winter in general. I can't believe they don't fly a single route to Croatia.
ReplyDeleteThey used to fly to ZAG once upon a time.
Deleteex-Yu markets are not an area of interest to them unlike FR and W6.
DeleteTheir costs are also higher than those two, meaning they have to performance much better to make money.
DeleteSo pretty much all of the main LCCs - Ryan, Wizz and easy - have all heavily reduced flights to ex-Yu republics.
ReplyDeleteThey have heavily reduced schedules from everywhere in Europe, not just ex-Yu. In fact, ex-Yu got off better than others.
DeleteThe only difference is that Ryanair's and Wizz Air's suspensions are temporary. EasyJet are usually permanent.
DeleteThey have no flights to BEG at all for a few weeks in January :O
ReplyDeleteFor 2 weeks.
DeleteThese LCC suspensions are not good at all.
ReplyDeleteThat's what you get with companies focused on profit and nothing else but profit. Sevice and loyalty are non-exisiting words in their dictionary.
DeleteJust like the word profit is absent from the dictionary of exyu national carriers.
Deletetrue haha
DeleteCome to Bosnia please!
ReplyDeleteWith Wizz in SJJ I doubt it.
DeleteWhat I find funny is that the situation is not as bad as last year demand wise yet airlines are still cutting routes.
ReplyDeleteAirlines were in a better financial state last year.
DeleteLast winter easy cut almost everything.
DeleteYes but they were temporary suspension.
DeleteWell it's definitely not good either. Cases are exploding right now and with omicron scam it will only get worse this winter. These airlines know exactly what they're doing.
DeleteEither way, BEG-GVA was always a route with issues even before Corona. Either way too many carriers or cuts or withdrawals. This was ever since Baboo or Etihad region, etc, etc
ReplyDeleteBut BEG-GVA will keep operating from early February.
DeleteGood news for Croatia Airlines from Split at least. More pax for their seasonal Gatwick and Heathrow flights.
ReplyDelete:(
ReplyDeleteNot good but primarily for easyjet. I'm sure the airports will find an alternative.
ReplyDeleteLike LJU found an alternative for Berlin?
DeleteAnd London?
DeleteUnfortunately, I fear there will be more such announcements by various airlines.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely
DeleteMore to come this winter sadly.
DeleteAre they launching any new route next summer?
ReplyDeleteOnly Glasgow - Pula in June for a grand total of 2 months.
DeleteHopefully more routes will be added.
DeleteI worked in travel..based UK specialising in ex YU countries..all are fantastic. Covid ended my career. I cannot tell you how the pandemic is affecting traveller confidence. it is massive. Dubrovnik is always top from UK. by this point in December flights to DBV for April onwards would be 25-30 p cent full.
ReplyDeletemany many people have decided not to fly. UK hotels and seaside houses are renting well..people staying in uk for next holiday. it is awful.
I use Easyjet LGW-PUY often..they have already changed/ cancelled my flights on this route 4 times for April.
not good.
I can imagine. Hope things imporve
DeleteEasyjet Switzerland seems to be the only one in the Easyjet family to have a basic understanding of the Ex Yu market .
ReplyDeleteEasyjet Europe on the other side seems to prefer cancelling as soon as possible after a short half-hearted try .
basic understanding?
Deleteby not flying Basel-Skopje while Wizz has daily flights plus a few weekly from Ohrid. not convinced at all ...
add every other ExYu airport with Basel flights on the list
Doesn't surprise me in the least, they've shown a lack of concern for U.K. travellers for some time. As far as they're concerned travellers from North of Stansted or South of Manchester simply don't exist, and are easy prey for disrupting their travel plans.
ReplyDeleteReally? Why is that?
Deletei think that easy will fly basel-skopje next summer..on the euroairport timetable there are load EZS1149/1150 4/7
DeleteIt seems all LCCs are cutting schedules and it is unfortunate travel has again been turned upside down because of this new variant which has now been proven to cause mild forms of disease and, like in South Africa, case numbers have gone down drastically very quickly (without any measures whatsoever). Within a few weeks same will happen in Europe.
ReplyDelete