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Air Serbia has cancelled plans to launch four weekly flights from Belgrade to Amman this summer. Initially announced in late January, the carrier planned to maintain four weekly flights between the two cities starting June 1, with three weekly rotations operating over the winter. The airline has not provided a reason for the termination. Ticket sales have been discontinued while tour operators that were selling packages to Jordan, utilising Air Serbia’s Amman service, have also removed them from sale. Passengers who were booked on the flights have been offered an alternative with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul, with Air Serbia codesharing on both sectors.
Amman becomes the second route from Air Serbia’s planned 2022 summer expansion to be cancelled. Previously, the airline also discontinued sales for its planned Sochi flights in light of the situation in Russia. Services to Amman were initially planned to launch back in the summer of 2020 but were cancelled due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and travel restrictions. Flights from the Jordanian capital were scheduled so as to offer convenient connections via Belgrade to other European destinations. The airline was in particular targeting transfer traffic to Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Ljubljana, Milan, Paris, Prague, Podgorica, Rome, Stuttgart, Tivat, Trieste, Venice and Zagreb.
Commenting on the planned Amman service back in January, Boško Rupić, who was at the time Head of Sales and Marketing, but has since assumed the role of General Manager for Commercial and Strategy, said, “The decision to introduce direct flights to Amman is a result of the strategic importance of renewing our presence in the Middle East region”. Since the start of Covid-19, Air Serbia has suspended all of its flights to the Middle East. Amman was last served by Air Serbia’s predecessor, JAT Yugoslav Airlines, until 2001. In 2008, Royal Wings, the charter arm of Jordan’s national carrier Royal Jordanian Airlines, commenced a one weekly service between the two capital cities which lasted for a single season. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Turkish Airlines handled 30% of traffic between Belgrade and Amman. It was followed by TAROM with a 26% share, Aegean Airlines with 21% of all passengers, Alitalia with an 8% share and Austrian Airlines with a 7% passenger share.
Brilliant strategic planning by the new CEO and CCO. Congrats
ReplyDeleteAt this rate they will have no new routes left.
ReplyDeleteLol!
DeleteSochi I understand but why Amman? I mean with 4 weekly they must have been expecting good loads.
ReplyDeleteSales must have been very poor. And war in Ukraine can't be used as an excuse.
ReplyDeleteThey were not great but they were not poor. Marek doesn't want to risk his position by taking a risk on new markets like Amman. I hope the government starts looking for a replacement.
DeleteYep - that seems to be the obvious outcome. A poor decision in hindsight. It should never have been a scheduled flight. Instead, they should have had it as a charter destination, covering peak season travel in summer AND winter
DeleteActually they shouldn't have launched it until they were ready to commit to the market and invest in it. Unfortunately management has no vision and this will join GVA as one of their bigger failures.
DeleteShame :(
ReplyDeleteThe only new route I was looking forward to
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI mean I still might go, but was looking forward for a direct flight.
So in the end, Sarajevo will be the only ex-Yu city with flights to Amman/Jordan?
ReplyDeletethere are charter flights from Ljubljana.
DeleteTold you more cuts are coming. TRS and BLQ are probably next.
ReplyDeleteThey promoting both. I doubt they will be suspended.
DeleteSo what will they launch in the end?
ReplyDeleteFrom Belgrade Hanover, Salzburg, Bologna, Trieste, Bari, Palma, Valencia, Lyon, Nuremberg and Rijeka
DeleteAnd then from Nis to Athens and from Kraljevo to Tivat
DeleteStill not bad
DeleteI agree that this is still an impressive list of new routes. 12 in total.
DeleteLet's see what will stick come June.
DeleteWell at least we can say with certainty that Valencia is starting this Thursday.
DeleteFlight is operating with A320 and almost completely sold out
J3 C1 D0 W0 I0 X0 Y7 B1 H0 K0 M0 Q0 L0 V0 U0 E0 T0 Z0 G0 S0
Good. Not surprised though. It's full for Easter.
DeleteTo the guys complaining about cancelation of the route. They introduced 15+ routes, only 2 of them got canceled. That's still a huge success considering that one of those routes is in Russia. If the ticket sales were slow and they would have to lease another aircraft for the route (basically the canceled two routes would cover around 50% of the aircraft weekly cycle) the decision is the right one. I will also add that I'm not from Serbia and that you guys should be happy that you have the only decently operating airline in the ex-yu
ReplyDelete+1
Delete+1
DeleteI agree.
DeletePeople here tend to see everything black and white. Couple of days ago, FR suspended for two months quarter of ZAG flights, and immediately it was the End of the World. Today JU announces cancellation of one route out of 12 and it is again the End of the World. Well it is not. I agree fully with @An.09.15, despite AMM cancellation, which I personally intended to use, and feel sorry wouldn't be able to, JU is the only decently operating ex-yu airline, the other two could hardly be called airlines at all
DeleteIf it wasn't working it's smarter to ditch it before starting flights, in my opinion. And it was done well on time, 2 months before the start.
ReplyDeleteOr how about they do their homework before randomly launching routes without any marketing or promotion?
DeletePerhaps market conditions have changed.
DeleteLook at from this angle:
ReplyDeleteTicket sales to AMM is going slowly. At the same time, unlike 3x a month last year, charter sales from INI went up to 3-4 weekly for this summer. When the budget is locked and you are for profit, what would you do with your dedicated aircraft? Go for AMM to pin it in the map or collect the money from the plate?
+1
DeleteThey are making money on charters because the market is highly regulated. Look at Air Cairo. Al Masria applied for flights, let's see how fast CAD blocks them.
DeleteSo?
DeleteWho said it is not?
The aviation market is highly regulated all around the globe, no?
Whether it is multilateral or bilateral agreements...
Great, then JU should become charter company and let someone else develop scheduled traffic.
DeleteWhy?
DeleteMaybe they should drop both charter and scheduled routes and focus on feeding others? Sounds familiar?
Delete@piR
Deletevery well asked ;)
Because they are making huge loss with scheduled traffic? They are obviously still trying to figure it out.
Delete@18,31
DeleteCharter traffic is centered around 3 months of the year, a couple destinations for longer. What should they do for 9 months? Park aircraft?
Losses are not huge on scheduled traffic. Overall, it was 9.5 mil euros in 2019 on top of a large expansion. It's not ideal, but at a manageable level.
So I'm guessing they won't need so many additional planes as first thought.
ReplyDeleteThey will
DeleteI don't understand what their research team was doing. This is the second time they have suggested Amman after suspending sales in 2020 because of Covid.
ReplyDeleteMarket is there. Sales and marketing isn't good.
DeleteOther than social media, I haven't seen a single advertisement in Belgrade for the new routes.
Economy light fares were not offered on the route, despite AMM having a fair few European airlines offering no baggage fares. JU isn't very consistent in that aspect.
JFK is another route that wasn't offered via BEG, but rather via DOH on JetBlue flight numbers with QR, even though the outbound AMM-BEG-JFK works. I noticed a few destinations had really high fares, which gave the impression that flights were full (ie AMM-BEG-AMS).
Tourist agencies in Belgrade were routing pax via BUD for tours to Jordan. I haven't noticed them offering tours on JU, perhaps there were. JU really needs to improve its relationships with tour agencies.
Although JU has a decent business product, with a great lounge in BEG and the Etihad Guest FF program, JU doesn't seem to do well in tapping into that segment. Their linked in page has quite a number of complaints with next to no assistance regarding delays, flight changes, missing or damaged luggage. JU seems to be extremely slow to respond to customer queries, which probably means they are under staffed in that segment, which isn't good. Frequencies are also important for that sector, and 4 pw is not bad, daily would of made it more attractive. BEY started as daily and remained daily every summer season until they cut it due to the financial situation in Lebanon.
Will they replace it with some other destination?
ReplyDeleteHighly doubt it.
DeleteThey seem to have not rebooked passengers on Turkish but just given people a refund and told them to book Turkish instead. Only problem is Turkish is double the price than Air Serbia was.
ReplyDeleteThat's not very nice. Wouldn't it have been more logical for them to rebook pax on TK?
DeleteSo now if you want to go to AMM from BEG the best choices are Turkish Airlines or Aegean , too bad for JU.
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised TAROM has so much traffic to Amman from BEG. Do they still fly to Amman.
DeleteYup they have flights in the middle of the night. They have been flying there for decades.
DeleteI assume it connected well from the night flights JU had to OTP
DeleteRO has been dedicated to AMM and it's paying off. This is the best news for them especially now when they are flying brand new ATR72-600s to BEG.
DeleteSo JU remains out of the Middle East for another year.
ReplyDeleteCan't they now reintroduce Cairo or Tel Aviv since they have the plane freed up?
ReplyDeleteAmman was long overdue. Shame it's being dropped.
ReplyDeletePerhaps improvement in marketing is needed.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a major issue that JU has to address.
DeleteBut based on what do you measure and qualify marketing as 'improvement area'?
DeleteIn my opinion, having in mind limited budget - the targeting was quite smart and rational - you can see someone with brains is doing some segmentation, targeted approach etc.
I mean, don't expect miracles - with the money the airlines are having nowadays - it would always be at best very targeted approach online + social networks, perhaps with some very rare one-off exceptions...
Even with a limited budget, more could be done.
Delete- Social media ads are not that expensive when even small businesses can afford them.
- A few billboard ads in strategic locations in Belgrade would be good to spread awareness of routes. Above TC Staklenac for example, right across from Republic Square, which is visited by all tourists to Belgrade, prices range from 680-1.050€ per week for advertising space. Novi Sad is even cheaper.
- Offer a free return ticket or business upgrade to a few travel bloggers with large amounts of followers.
- They could of done a special promo ie 10 routes for 10€ for the first 100 tickets, one way ex luggage. JU isn't always viewed as affordable and as such is not always the first choice for Serbian travelers. An offer like this would be a step in the right direction.
- Offer special fares for high school and university students. Get them accustomed to flying rather than traveling by bus.
Just a couple of random ideas that spring to my mind which doesn't require a large budget for marketing.
Yes, wasn't following closely billboards, so cannot really tell.
DeleteFor bloggers, I actually think that I saw some promo material that most probably came out as a result of something like that.
And for cheap tickets - I myself bought this time last year return ticket for JFK for 300EUR - so, it cannot be said that they are not doing it at all.
On the other hand I fully agree - there could be perhaps more of those small contingents of cheep tickets for the new routes... :)
If sales were poor, better cancel flights than lose money. Amman is an exotic destination for Serbs and not many are willing or ready to go t here just yet.
ReplyDeleteExactly, I agree. I view this as the management taking the right action at the right time.
DeleteIf you want to rely on transfers and build a hub at BEG then you have to start developing routes that are not purely relying on O&D demand. Amman was a step in that direction but it seems that JU under Marek's command failed the test.
Delete"JU under Marek's command failed the test"
DeleteBecause they cancelled one planned route? lol
I remember there being many charters to Aqaba during the 2000s by Jat Airways. What happened?
ReplyDeleteAqaba became very expensive in the meantime and was no longer feasible for Serbian tour operators. That's why it was dropped.
DeleteAviogenex was also flying to Taba in Egypt for a season or 2 as well.
DeleteAqaba became very expensive? Absolutely not true. Aqaba airport has Ryanair, Easyjet and other LCC'S which wouldn't be there if the airport was expensive, on the contrary they are trying to attract new carriers and services by reducing prices. As a city, Aqaba has Special Economic Zone status, and is cheaper than other places in Jordan. Btw writing this from Amman
DeleteYes, Aqaba is an expensive city to holiday in.
DeleteOK, you know better. Just for your info, been to Aqaba 12 times during the last 4 years. As everywhere, you have places and services in all cost ranges. If you compare it to Turkey or Egypt generally, yes, it is more expensive. But it is possible to make budget holidays in Aqaba as well and generally Aqaba is NOT expensive city. Once again, if your idea of holiday is staying in Movenpick or Kempinski, buying gem stones for souvenirs and riding taxi only, then yes, it will be expensive
DeleteWizz Air strategy, Announce new routes and then cancel half of them.
ReplyDeleteThey cancelled just 2 routes and one of them is in Russia which is currently under the most economic sanctions any country has had and is engaged in a war.
DeleteSo what if it is in Russia? Look at them thriving in LED and SVO. TK is also doing really well in Russia. It comes down to the quality of management.
DeleteI think we need to get Dane back at JU.
Thriving? The President said yesterday flights to Moscow and St Petersburg are now loosing money and Air Serbia is only flying there out of principle.
DeleteAlso Sochi was aimed at transfer passengers to western Europe. There will be none of that this year. A little reality check is needed by some here.
DeleteDuring Dane's era a dozen routes were cancelled.
DeleteI am wondering if Sochi would have been cancelled even with out the war.
Delete"11ч32 ... Do you really believe that Russia is a loss making route now that tickets are 3x more expensive than normal and when they are flying with 100% capacity? come on don't be fooled, SVO was one of the most profitable routes even before when prices were significantly lower and when the flew traditionally with a LF = 60-75%. It is like Vucic would know all these facts in order to say that there is no money on the table for the Russia routes .
DeleteDid you forget the costs of all the planes that returned because of bomb threats?
DeleteLet's see what gets cancelled next
ReplyDeleteBetter market research should be done in the future.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should just switch some services from BEG to INI. Sounds familiar?
DeleteI really cant understand some things in management policy of JU. I am wondering what was the point of beginning with Amman? Isn't it logical to go to the market where you can earn some money and than to play with cities which can never be full loaded? I don't know, maybe I don't understand.
ReplyDeletenot end of the world stuff, they are launching many other routes. They have come along a long way in the short period since covid subsided.
ReplyDeleteHahaha I love how some people are predicting the airline to fail just because they have suspended the launch of two destinations. Hmm... I guess the fact that they are launching another 12 doesn't really matter. Oh well... what a shame.
ReplyDeleteThere is still time until June...
DeleteOf course it matters. But today's news is Amman termination, the launch was news two months ago.
DeleteIt's not good that the airline is struggling to launch a route like AMM. RO offers alot less connections via OTP and have managed to make it work, on top of having competition on the route with FR. RO handles 26% of the AMM demand from BEG while the BEG-OTP-BEG sector is almost always on JU. The irony.
DeleteIt's not just 2 routes not launching this summer, another 2 are not returning (KRR and ROV), while others served prepandemic are yet to return ie TLV, CAI. Meanwhile, competition has increased and JU is falling behind in frequencies. TK has gone 3 daily, JU daily. KLM double daily, JU was at best 10 pw pre pandemic. Wizz went from no base in TIA to 9 ac and 43 routes in less than 2 years, JU struggles to send an ATR at least twice a day while O&D demand has dramatically increased since the pandemic. Out of all the new destinations for this summer, JU's focus on social media seems mostly on the Italian routes which gives the impression that they don't seem to be selling as well as expected.
I like how they cancelled this quietly that no one noticed.
ReplyDeleteWell ex-yu noticed
DeleteAnd what should they do, announce it in all media's: Čujete i popijte, daje se na znanje!
DeleteStop trolling nonsense.
No normal airline announces the cancelation of routes. Wizz didn't do this in BEG when they canceled their complete expansion in 2020, FR didn't announce flight cancelations in ZAG either and the list goes on.
DeleteThey didn't even try to advertise this route. Really poor job with Amman, they simple didn't give it any chance. Hope it gets better with other routes, with this marketing approach they'll need a lot of luck.
ReplyDeleteAir Serbia is not the only airline to cancel routes. That's par for the course in airline business. Dispatch reliability should be of greater concern. Flights including typically punctual JFK have been delayed by couple of hours today. That's not acceptable. Air Serbia has to find the cause and improve operational stats.
ReplyDeleteFully agree but that it their constant problem that they never were able to fix; I guess that is part of the mentality. Their turn around time is too short in most places hence causing delays. On Saturday JFK was also delayed by 3 hours for some reason (other than late arrival of AC).
DeleteThey fixed with strict focus and discipline it in the first couple of years after rebranding. Now they have new centralized security and new gates yet the delays are increasing. Inexcusable except when they had anonymous threats, and those were not targeting EU and US flights.
DeleteThere are constant threats. Even today there was a bomb threat made against the airport.
DeleteSo how come that only a few flights were affected and only JU flights if the airport got a threat again today? You are placing nonsense here!
DeleteI'm not writing nonsense. Bomb threats today were made against Air Serbia flights, Air Serbia head office, Belgrade Airport, Belgrade city hall.
DeleteWhat? Threats included Air Serbia flight to the USA??? Bad, bad idea. That would be noticed in the US. If they get involved they will absolutely certainly find the perpetrator even if state actor.
DeleteI did not say that a threat was made against the JFK flight.
DeleteOn Saturday (and today) it's seems like a some problem with YU-ARB.They pushed back A330 from gate,started taxiing to runway,and returned to gate (for another 1-2 hours).
DeleteAnon @ 1433 - your observations are well noted. So many things have deteriorated in the years after relaunching as Air Serbia. The first 2-3 years saw the cleanliness and appearance of the cabins, the product, the crew and even visibility/marketing in the market completely go down hill and even disappear
DeleteThere have been bomb threats across Serbia today. Three shopping malls had to be evacuated.
DeleteIf it's true about proxy war then those Air Serbia and other threats could be some proxy cyber war, with someone in Ukraine being just a proxy actor targeting Serbia? Acting on behalf of?
Delete@14,33 & 16,20
DeleteEven back then, JU wasn't the best in implementing their products and services. For example, they installed wifi on all Airbus aircraft, overcharged for the service so nobody was using it. The interface for the Elevate Play app was horrible on phones and tablets, with incomplete and even outdated info about the airline. Another example was providing business class catering in paper boxes. They back then launched a number of destinations that they later suspended (WAW, VAR, OHD, IST, KBP). Signage in their aircraft in Serbian was full of grammatical and spelling errors. Not everything back then was great.
Sales and marketing used to be good but it has had a big drop since 2016. I believe the last major campaign was the Times Square ad when JFK was launched. They had a couple of crappy attempts since 2016, even with bad grammar in Serbian. Really disappointing.
As for dispatch reliability, that also comes down to BEG. There are alot of complaints about the overall ops in BEG. I have had a number of unpleasant experiences in BEG that shouldn't have happened, and it's usually ground staff not following procedures. The new management doesn't seem to have done much in this regard.
I liked how they introduced fares with Milos Bikovic. Not my favorite actor though but it was clean, nice, cool...
DeleteOverwall JU is an amateur airline with many gaps, what to really expect fom an airline staffed with 75% party members that never knew anything about aviation!?
DeleteYou are such a lamb.
DeleteI agree with some commentators here that JU barely does any promotion of their new routes anywhere, especially in Serbia.
ReplyDeleteIt's seems that Air Serbia copying Wizz and Ryanair strategy of cancelling flights. It would be nice to start copying and their prices, since everything else is low except ticket price
ReplyDeleteOh, how wise! You better check a bit before you comment. Wizz ans Ryan are nit only 9.99, but much, much more... In my experience, I always used legacy because their price and timing are way better.
DeleteBut, I guess some feel might and clever to say BS.
Otkazivanje leta 2 meseca pre početka sigurno nije zbog loše rezervacije. Zbog Korone,letovi se i dalje ne planiraju toliko unapred. Mislim da je nešto drugo u pitanju. Mogli su da drže prodaju karata do poslednjeg trenutka do kad ne bi morali da plaćaju penale putnicima koji su platili karte. Znači sačekaš dve nedelje do početka letova i ako je slaba prodaja otkažeš bez ikakvih posledica i to je to.
ReplyDelete