NEWS FLASH
Kuwaiti carrier Jazeera Airways has discontinued its two weekly seasonal summer service between Kuwait City and Belgrade. Flights between the two capitals were launched last June and ran until early September but were cut short by two weeks. Services were primarily marketed towards Russian transfer passengers. Kuwait City now becomes one of the busiest unserved routes in the Middle East from Belgrade based on indirect traffic flow. Jazeera Airways is Kuwait’s second largest airline and the country’s largest private carrier. This summer, it will maintain flights to both Sarajevo and Tivat in the former Yugoslavia, the latter having been launched last summer as well.
Pity, but with marketing in BEG, I don't think anyone even knew about this route last year.
ReplyDeleteno marketing
DeleteThey had many ads targeting Russians. The ad was like "from Belgrade to Moscow" and that's it.
DeleteThere are many issues. Frequencies were too low to allow them yo compete with FlyDubai and Qatar on the Gulf market, hence they only had a handful of low-yield transfer passengers.
ReplyDeleteThree weekly would have been a minimum to allow for any serious operation.
ReplyDeletewithout demand 3 weekly is too much!
DeleteKuwait is a transfer airport. Demand wasn't there because of awkward transfer timings and poor advertising
DeleteHorrible news for BEG these days
ReplyDeleteThis was long time expected.
DeleteShame, wanted to visit Kuwait without a hassle of transfering thru IST or DOH but guess it'll have to be done that way :(
ReplyDeleteAnd don't get me wrong, I love IST & DOH airports, just prefer direct flights sometimes!
DeleteOh no
ReplyDeleteAnyway
Jako sam žalosna.
ReplyDeleteJust a little gamble by the Kuwaitis but Kuwait is neither a tourist destination nor a convenient transfer hub for most travelers.
ReplyDeleteIt was a useless route. There is nothing in common with Kuwait and Serbia. The same is happening with Wizzair in Saudi Arabia. They cut so many routes from both Riyadh and Jeddah. The arabs are trying to bring Europeans, but not working well. For the time being UAE is the only real magnet, Doha is trying but it is just too boring or and with a purely transfer airport.
ReplyDeleteAlso there is a huge saturation of Gulf carriers in general
And honestly Kuwait is desert, shopping malls and bizarre lifestyle. It is not Egypt or Jordan where you have a lot to see and do with history, etc.
Saudi Arabia seems to be working for Greece and Italy tho. ITA introduces flights to JED and RUH this summer while Aegean maintains year round flights to RUH,JED and seasonal to DMM not to mention Saudia flying to Mykonos. That could work the same way with SPU and DBV.
DeleteSaudi is opening to the world, but still has super expensive visas and you cannot compare it to UAE, which is more "liberal" or destined for rich oligarchs. Saudi can focus on Jeddah, which is more beautiful than Riyadh. It is a coastal town.
DeleteItaly is like a brand in Saudi and does not need to promote itself. Unsure about Greece demand, but you are right. And yes, SPU and DBV might work but arabs usually do not go the beach. They prefer fancy stuff, malls. BEG for sure is not type of city It is like going to Lithuania or Poland, which are also not destinations for Saudis. But, if Wizzair failed so much in Saudi and made a huge success in Abu Dhabi is for more than obvious reasons. Also UAE is much more flexible with visas