Sarajevo Airport has held a number of meetings with airlines over the past month with the aim of securing new flights to unserved destinations in Europe. The airport has confirmed it is targeting services to the likes of Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Dusseldorf, Copenhagen, Paris, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Strasbourg, Verona, and Hamburg, among others. In addition to discussions with airlines already serving Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital, the airport has also held talks with Volotea, easyJet, Transavia, and Germany’s Condor. “Our team has held a series of meetings that they believe will result in new routes from Sarajevo Airport in the next three-year period”, the airport noted.
Sarajevo Airport participated in the recent Routes Europe conference in Aarhus in Denmark, where it engaged in discussions with carriers regarding potential new route launches. Apart from talks with potential new entrants onto Bosnia and Herzegovina’s aviation market, talks were also held with Sarajevo Airport’s existing airline partners including Wizz Air, Eurowings, Norwegian Air Shuttle, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, and TUI Airways. Furthermore, the event was attended by representatives from the Ministry for Economy of the Sarajevo Canton to explain in detail its subsidy program aimed at boosting the capital city’s air connectivity. “We are aware of Sarajevo Canton’s enormous potential for tourism. We will do our outmost to pave the way for its expansion, in accordance with our capabilities”.
Sarajevo Airport anticipates its busiest summer season on record, with twelve new routes announced and over 1.6 million seats on sale between March 31 and October 26. Ryanair has commenced operations to the airport for the first time with five of six destinations already launched, while Air Arabia and Aegean Airlines will restore their nonstop Sharjah and Athens flights after several years. Turkish carrier SunExpress has commenced services from Antalya and Izmir, while Pegasus Airlines has grown its presence in Sarajevo with new flights from Antalya. Saudi Arabia’s Flyadeal and SAS Scandinavian Airlines will launch seasonal operations from Jeddah and Copenhagen later this summer. The majority of the new routes will be subsidised by the Tourism Association of the Sarajevo Canton.
Volotea is such a cool airline and better than Vueling. Love their product focusing on more secondary destinations and very affordable fares. Interestingly, in the region they fly to Varna and not even Poland or Romania.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.volotea.com/en/destinations/
SJJ will be a good addition.
Last years VAR have more western carriers, Transavia also flies this year to ORY. Maybe is and for bulgarians not just for french tourists. Will be good to see again direct flights between France and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
DeleteYes, but the problem is that only Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries and Istanbul (because of the transfers) work from SJJ. Everything else starts and stops, starts and stops. Last years there were many flights to Italy, Holland, we had Paris and they stopped. I hope I'm wrong, but we've all seen how such destinations fare, Wizz Air's base has shown that they don't work even if the tickets are cheap. TZL also had many flights to destinations other than the German-speaking and Scandinavian markets.
DeleteAll that Sarajevo can develop is Rome/Milan, Eindhoven or Charleroi, we already have London, and of course many unserved Scandinavian destinations. It's good that at least CPH is back. We have ARN, GOT and OSL. It's better than last year, at some point SJJ went downhill and there weren't enough destinations.
DeleteHow's the Olympic flight to SKP performing?
DeleteI think good, LF is over 75-80%.
Delete^^^
DeleteLF of 75-80% is very good, especially for the winter season. Seems like demand was there for the route but no airline took the risk.
Because Aegean was growing and focusing on bigger markets. 80% LF is good for SKP but that means 35 passengers per flight which is very little. That is why it took time for them to introduce SKP
DeleteSorry SJJ, typo
DeleteRe SKP-SJJ-SKP I flew two times (October and March) and the plane was almost full (A72 and A42)
DeleteThat would be great. Bosnia needs a lot more flights to Europe.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteCopenhagen , Stockholm , Paris , Rome and Eindhoven/Amsterdam are flights that must be from Sarajevo .
ReplyDeleteThere is already CPH and ARN
DeleteStrasbourg - Sarajevo 2x per week with Volotea would be a success !
ReplyDeleteoh yes
DeleteEaayjet would be fantastic
ReplyDelete*easyjet
DeleteIn that case Sarajevo would have the big 3 LCCs in Europe :D
DeleteWhat happened to Vueling? Are they still negotiating with SJJ?
ReplyDeleteTransavia is long overdue
ReplyDeleteFrom where would Volotea fly?
ReplyDeleteItaly, France, Spain and Greece. That's where they are focused and have bases.
DeleteItaly is possible, most of pax will be italian tourists. This will be and in VY, if they start.
Deletesimply not happening
DeleteMost potential would probably be something like Venice and Florence, maybe they could launch Lille, though, idk, are there a lot of gaserbaiters in Belgium and France?
Deleteevery airport is talking to airlines. Dont get it why bosnian airport CEOs must run to the press after every talk
ReplyDeleteThey have to justify somehow their fat salary.
DeleteSvi objavljuju ovakve informacije. Ova danasnja info ne potice od CEO.
Deletema kakvi
DeleteBecause they have leads now, the article about talks was out 10 days ago, now something is cooking
DeleteAny of these would be fine!
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to attract these airlines without paying them?
ReplyDeleteNo.
DeleteThe 737MAX and Pratt engine situation has made airlines to examine very closely where they will deploy their limited capacity.
DeleteAnd things won't improve for years...
Literally none of these airlines have these problems.
DeleteThere have been many articles published about economic benefit for the area when subsidizing LCCs, so I see no trouble paying them. I am personally happy to see many tourists in Sarajevo coming from the west as well (e.g. British)
DeleteLondon to Sarajevo would work if the place were properly promoted in UK.. long weekend break etc. I've told so many people what a fab city it is....they take one look at an 0600 departure.. check in 0400 etc and say they've chosen Barcelona, Nice, Dubrovnik!
ReplyDeleteRyanair has lots of flights to Sarajevo from London departing mind morning this summer..so what do you mean lol
DeleteThere's Ryanair, there's Wizz and TUI in the winter, more than enough.
DeleteYes, I think for now there are more than sufficient number of flights to/from London.
DeleteWhat are LFs on Ryanair’s STN-SJJ flights? I flew wizz from Luton in February and it was nearly full both ways, mostly diaspora like me but also some British tourists, good to see!
DeleteI think 88-91%
DeleteFantastic, may it continue! I am always encouraging my British friends to visit Bosnia and I think it has real potential as a budget friendly destination for British tourists year round.
DeleteLiterally everyone wants to fly to lovely Sarajevo
ReplyDeleteI don't
DeleteTi neces nedostajati😀
DeleteGiven their passenger numbers I don't think many are rushing to go there.
DeleteYeah, it's a shame how neglected the airport was before, with a good tourism campaign Sarajevo can easily be the most visited former Yugoslav capital
DeleteI think SSJ is too focused on attracting Muslims from the Middle East. They need to brand themselves as a charming European destination, not an Islamic pocket in Europe. That simply doesn't sell.
Delete@19:39
DeleteThis is even better than those couple of dudes comparing Split with Barcelona or Nice few years ago xD
Considering the size of the city, Split is doing remarkably well in July and August actually.
Delete@22:22, don't see the point of the comment, Sarajevo is only behind Ljubljana and Belgrade now, it's theirs to try but I think that Ljubljana will set a high bar when they finish the railways to Austria.
DeleteWould be interesting to see Volotea. Other than Dubrovnik and Split they don't fly to any ex-Yu city and no ex-Yu capital.
ReplyDeleteThey were asked to serve Hamburg and/or Strassbourg. There is a huge diaspora in the region and STR EW flights are quite expensive AND BiH people don’t know that they can take a direct bus to Frankfurt Airport and transfer to LH to SJJ.
DeleteBiH people don't if they're visiting Colmar for the holidays but the diaspora does.
DeleteVolotea to Hamburg or Strassbourg, EasyJet to Basel or Berlin, Transavia to Eindhoven.
ReplyDeleteI think its begin correct
Delete