NEWS FLASH
Flydubai has discontinued the sale of tickets for flights between Dubai and Skopje, which were scheduled to resume after three and a half years on October 30. The airline had been selling tickets for its two weekly flights between the two cities for several months. It is the fifth time Flydubai has cancelled plans to return to the Macedonian capital since it suspended operations to the city in March 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Skopje Airport has had no scheduled services to the Gulf region since the start of Covid-19 with Qatar Airways also discontinuing its operations to the Macedonian capital.
What a surprise...
ReplyDeleteOh no :(
ReplyDeleteGreat news for Turkish.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder that they will reach 200K pax per year very soon.
I can't believe they cant fill 2 weekly flights. The demand must be really poor.
ReplyDeletethey had more then 50k in 2019
Deletetogether with Qatar
DeleteQatar have fleet issues with the A320 so highly doubt they are expanding the region until the arrival of their Maxes.
DeleteI wouldn´t be surprised if Wizzair would lauch flights from Skopje in a near future to either Abu Dhabi or Saudi Arabia, they are expanding there a lot.
ReplyDeleteIf these flights cant manage, why would Wizz to Abu Dhabi?
DeleteWizz would be cheaper than Flydubai and if they can make Sarajevo five weekly from AUH work, Skopje with two weekly flights can survive in my opinion.
Deletehave you ever compared prices of flydubai and Wizzair Abu Dhabi?
Delete16.05 was for 15.07. If flyubai could have bit short of 30k in 2019 with their rates imagine.
DeleteJust for comparison, for some dates randomly in July, you can find oneway from AUH to BEG with Wizz for around 100 euros, with Flydubai the fares are around 350 euros. Of course, Flydubai have advantages with transfers on another flights etc, but Skopje being quite price sensitive market, Wizz with its strong presence there has undoubted advantage.
DeleteWhat does Flydubai expect that people are gonna buy tickets a year before their flight. If it was for the summer season oke but not for October. Tickets were €1000. But probably they found in the meantime another city in Pakistan or India where they will send their plane.
ReplyDeleteAs long as SKP lands at T2 at DXB this flight won't sell. When continuing onwards to Australia on EK flights (or coming from an EK flight from Australia and connecting to SKP) you need to clear immigration (for which you need to get a UAE visa before traveling if you're Macedonian), then catch a taxi or a shuttle bus and get yourself to the Emirates terminal (or vice versa). Why do any of that when you can just get on a TK or QR flight (when they existed), especially if the price is more or less the same?
ReplyDeleteDo you think FZ are stupid enough not to have made their maths about it? Also NMK is one of the few countries in Europe which still requires a visa to UAE. It has got nothing to do with changing terminals in Dubai but lack of demand as usual.
DeleteEtihad was stupid enough to do "boutique" stuff in JU. Don't see why FZ couldn't be similarly stupid in some things, here for example. And most of travel between NMK and AUS is by ethnic Macedonians with Australian passport, who don't require UAE visas, but do mind hassle of changing terminals, as well as combination of FZ and EK. I tried once FZ and EK combo from ZAG, and never again. The next time I went to VCE to have whole journey EK.
DeleteMy guess would be that AirArabia or Wizz would be more successful as they offer the bare minimum for the minimum price as well, which is perfectly suitable for turists
ReplyDeleteThe Dubai saga continues with Skopje..
ReplyDeleteExpected really
ReplyDeleteI had my doubts too because the flight was not open for the whole winter schedule
ReplyDeleteIt was not open for entire winter because tickets are only sold a year in advance. Every week tickets would be made available for the corresponding date the following year.
DeleteMaybe the demand was pretty low or they plan to return to SKG...
ReplyDeleteThe first thing is that the government in North Macedonia should try to remove visas to enter UAE, then demand definitely will increase to UAE.
ReplyDeleteUntil our Macedonian diaspora is not starting to visiting Macedonia like they do before Covid there will be no real route from Doha or Dubai , they were the main passengers without them there is no real financial enonomicly good route for any airline to start it operating again.
ReplyDeleteNot suprising a return was like 1100 euro. While Turkish airlines offers Dubai for €530. Belgrade it's the same with Fly Dubai and TK airlines even offers €408. But appereantly there are a lot of people who don't mind paying €600 more(I heard big part is O&D travel). I know there are like 30k Serbs in UAE who are quite wealthy but still strange that Fly Dubai can afford selling tickets for these prices.
ReplyDeleteAlso don't forget that loads are excellent and it was reported on here that FZ in BEG exceeded its pre covid numbers. It's impressive because they also have Wizz from AUH which flies up to 5 times per week. They are charging that much because the market is willing to pay for it. Both daily flights are packed.
DeleteIt is not a problem for Skopje. You can fly from SOF or TIA.
ReplyDeleteWell, those airports are not doing that hot right now. British Airways announced cuts for both airports during summer 2023. Actually they are reducing flights in the whole region except LJU.
DeleteLHR-ZAG 380 > 183
LHR-TIA 455 > 287
LHR-SOF 217 > 174
LHR-PUY 36 > 18
LHR-BUD 881 > 824
LHR-OTP 434 > 417
LHR-LJU 90 > 138
What about SKP? Are they reducing or increasing flights there? 🤣
DeleteI remember SKP 7 years ago. Without a doubt, the airport with the most competitive prices in the Western Balkans and with a variety of destinations. Today SKP is better with ticket prices and destinations than PRN, TGD. But again back PRN with passenger number. Without a doubt the leading airport for ticket price is TIA. While BEG for number of passengers followed by TIA.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been postponing my trip to Skopje waiting for this route to reopen and still no good news. I blame the government in Skopje for not using the opportunity they had while the flights were open to relax the visa rules for uae residents and attract uae tourists, create more interest for the flights to make sense to FlyDubai. I’m a Macedonian living in Dubai and dreading the idea to go home because I’ll have to take connecting flights with inconvenient timings.
ReplyDeleteCry me a river. It takes me over 30 hrs to visit family in Skopje from Australia.
Delete