NEWS FLASH
Air Serbia is adding capacity on its service between Belgrade and Bucharest after the Romanian low cost carrier Blue Air announced it was temporarily suspending operations until October 10. In a statement, the budget airline said that it was unable to make payments to any supplier because the government had blocked its accounts over unpaid CO2 certificates to the Ministry of Enviornment. Air Serbia is increasing capacity on the route from next Monday by deploying its 144-seat Airbus A319 aircraft instead of the usual seventy-seat ATR72. The A319 has so far been scheduled on flights for Monday September 12, followed by September 16, 17, 18, 19 and September 22. Additional changes are expected in the coming days.
Bravo Air Serbia! Huge respect!
ReplyDeleteSomeone was complaining yesterday how why they don't respond and others were talking AirSerbia has no capacity... They have the courage, and that is the most important! Bravo AirSerbia ! Proud of you!
Delete+1
DeleteCongratulations from Croatia. All of us interested and/or involved in civil aviation can only dream about Croatia Airlines doing the job Air Serbia is doing
DeletePozdrav za Rijeku.
DeleteAre You aware that blueair was not flying into Serbia? Just a simple question.
DeleteThey are sending a319s to Ljubljana too, so could we see 3x daily at some point?
ReplyDeleteThey could add a third flight on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays. That would be the maximum. Of course, only if they get another ATR.
DeleteIsn't the first flight with the A319 on 10.09. at midnight?
ReplyDeleteNo, an ATR is scheduled for tomorrow.
DeleteSystem shows ATR. OTP-BEG is sold out tomorrow.
DeleteAT7
BEG-OTP
Y7 B7 H7 K7 M7 Q0 L0 V0 U0 E0 T0 P0 R0 O0 Z0 G0 S0
OTP-BEG
AT7
Y0 B0 H0 K0 M0 Q0 L0 V0 U0 E0 T0 P0 R0 O0 Z0 G0 S0
I do not understand why Air Serbia does not publish this information on social media. Or to do anything to attract an additional number of passengers. It's not just a point to add to the reservation system.
ReplyDeleteThey should although demand is high even without it.
DeleteOTP has a similar problem like SKG. Both destinations are too far to be served by the ATR during the noon wave and the A319 was too big until recently. So they struggled to consolidate their positions in both markets. Hopefully with this recent uptick in demand they can fill a daytime A319 to Bucharest.
Delete@Nemjee
DeleteAnd what do you propose?
Either invest in marketing so that you can fill an A319 to/from OTP or get a regional jet that is faster than an ATR so that it can leave and come back in time.
DeleteIn the beginning when JU was rebranded OTP used to depart at 13.20. When it's the ATR it leaves at 12.55. With a 12.55 you miss key destinations like CDG, ARN and I think OSL and AMS.
@Nemjee
DeleteHow is OTP too far away from BEG to be served with ATR? Flight is 1:30 block time, departing BEG at 12:45 and returning at 16:45, exactly for the afternoon wave. Maybe just schedule it to depart at 12:30 from BEG.
Which means that now is the opportunity for Air Serbia to consolidate on the Bucharest market and finally start sending the A319. ATR is sufficient for midnight waves.
DeleteIs it possible for Air Serbia to add another destination in Romania before the start of the winter flight schedule?
DeleteBEG has a minimum time of 45 minutes for transfers. If Bucharest returns at 16.45 then it means it can connect onto flights that depart Belgrade at 17.30. This is for today:
Delete17.00 LJU
17.05 ARN
17.05 TIV
17.05 OSL
17.05 CDG
17.10 AMS
Anon 12.31
DeleteOTP is a large market that generates a crazy amount of O&D traffic. Air Serbia could easily operate double daily A319 (at least in summer) if they decided to invest a bit more in their marketing. They could also promote their current JFK flights as well as future ones to ORD and HAV.
With such a solid offer for September, on top of new flights to Sochi, Kazan ... I wonder if BEG might handle over 600.000 passengers this month. Would be quite cool.
ReplyDeleteDid Blue air fly to Belgrade ??
ReplyDeleteNo.
DeleteNoup. Never.
DeleteNow, after Blue Air being grounded, it is time for Cluj to be introduced, or some other Romanian airport, depending on pax data...
ReplyDeleteGuys, forget about Cluj and other.
ReplyDeleteLet's focus on BUH, a 3M blooming city which is not taken care off adequately at the moment.
Basically all the flights are in the noon wave so you cannot go to BUH for business other than sleeping over 1 additional night - this wasn't like that before COVID.
Also - on Tuesdays there are no flights whatsoever, meaning even less possibilities for p2p business travelers.
Also - on Wednesdays, only TAROM flies, meaning sometimes ATR42, so capacity is inadequate.
As said - add some departures in the morning waves, at least on Mon/Tue/Wed.
Only after business P2P travelers from very wealthy BUH area are taken care off, it makes sense thinking about secondary markets in RO...
Morning flight to Bucharest would also enable connections from JFK.
DeleteYes, honestly to me it seems like some brain damage led to this kind of schedule with only mid-day flights.
DeleteBefore COVID TAROM was focusing more on p2p segment, and had those morning flights, but probably their priorities changed + having limited fleet.
And AirSerbia didn't step in.
Having in mind that BUH is a huge, fairly rich market (by far more prosperous than the rest of RO, which in turn, as a country, has a bigger GDP per capita than HR), and also that all the the multinationals couple RO with the rest of Adriatic countries - it just doesn't add up in any sane logic not tapping in the p2p business travelers segment.
In my mind - BUH should have more priority in fleet rationing then most of ex-YU cities.
Current schedule was introduced by Etihad and it works for transfers to/from the West. However I agree with you that more priority should have been given over the years to Bucharest. I guess JU chronically struggled with ATRs and there were not enough of them to fully commit to this market. Hopefully this will change in the future.
DeleteHopefully they fix this before they introduce Chicago, I am sure they could get a lot of feed from there as well.
A bit off-topic. Does anyone know when AirSerbia will release their fares for dates after 25th of March 2023? Airlines usually release their fares almost a year in advance, but not AirSerbia.
ReplyDeleteSituation with Blue Air ain't getting better. It was announced that they are now eventually resuming operations on 10th October. Part of their planes are currently flying to Lleida Airport in Spain. So, no wonder why JU are increasing capacity throughout the whole month of September.
ReplyDeleteThe Romanians are really pissed off because there are strong rumours, that the Blue Air bank accounts were frozen by one of their Hungarian ministers who gave access to Wizzair to further expand in OTP in December. Which they did a couple of days ago.
Very interesting times ahead.
In order to be politician, one needs to be scum and trash, worldwide. With very very very rare exceptions. So, no wonder at all.
DeleteYou are right, my friend. Politics play a strong role in many things including a simple right and freedom such as aviation!
DeleteKey marketing point is for Air Serbia to put even more efforts on markets that used to and even still perceive Serbia/Yugoslavia/Air Serbia as advanced and modern in comparison to local market - this especially applies to Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. At one point, maybe to try again Warsaw, but with Airbus and a clear connection strategy for Exyu region and southern routes (including the middle east that were they already seek for expansion).
ReplyDeleteLOT flies to almost every city in the Balkans. They fly to the USA as well as to the Middle East. They fly on numerous routes throughout Europe.
DeleteIt just doesn't make sense.
Then explain how come JU does so well in Athens which is even better connected than WAW?
DeleteAegean does not fly to every city in our region. They don't even fly to the USA. Aegean is not as aggressive in Belgrade as LOT. Athens is a big city that has a huge number of tourists and diaspora. There is a large number of P2P passengers between Belgrade and Athens. Between Belgrade and Warsaw, that number is much smaller.
DeleteBEG-LJU on the 18th is sold out! Flight back isn't.
ReplyDeleteIt's really cool to see them do so well in LJU.
Air Serbia can replace ATR with A319. They have until Sunday to fill it.
DeleteIt's Sunday afternoon, I think all of thei A319s are busy flying. They can send the A330 :D
DeleteIt would be great if they added another ATR flight on Sundays. In the morning or in the midday wave.
Delete