NEWS FLASH
Qatar Airways handled 54.616 passengers on its flights between Doha and Belgrade during the first half of the year, registering an average cabin load factor of 86.1% over the six-month period. The passenger figures represent a 26% increase on its previous record during the first half of the pre-pandemic 2019, during which the airline maintained 70% of its flights with the 182-seat Airbus A321 aircraft, which it has since retired. During H1 2024, the Qatari carrier operated all but two of its Belgrade flights with the A320 jet (12% with 132-seat configuration and 88% with 144-seat configuration). The remaining two flights were run with the 254-seat 787-8 Dreamliner. Qatar Airways saw stronger figures during the first quarter of the year, during which it maintained ten weekly rotations between the two cities, before returning to its usual daily service from late March onwards. As EX-YU Aviation News learns, the additional three weekly flights maintained between December 2023 and March 2024 proved popular, particularly with local leisure travellers to destinations including Thailand, the Maldives, Vietnam, and Zanzibar. If the carrier secures sufficient narrow-body capacity, it is expected to restore the additional winter rotations.
Qatar Airways Belgrade performance, H1 2024
Those are good loads. Especially in winter months
ReplyDeleteSame as DXB, winter is peak season. But I agree good loads
DeleteDXB peaks in winter because of point to point demand. This is certainly not the case with Doha.
DeleteThis will all change as we get more flights to China. QR knowd this and that is why they are not adding more flights in winter
ReplyDeleteThey should increase frequencies because of the QR-JU codeshare in first place, but it seems that nothing spectacular turned out of it.
DeleteI don’t think that Chinese layovers would be more convenient or cheaper. But will see.
DeleteI think that people going to PVG, CAN & PEK won't fly on QR
DeleteIf the price is right, they will fly :)
DeleteWho is ever using JU codeshare flights? Those are horrendously expensive and they don't make any sense!
DeleteIf they need to add capacity theyd rather increase frequencies than add widebody aircraft permanently on the same schedule. The reason is that business class demand drives the need for widebody aircraft. If the growth is primarily economy class then airlines prefer to add more frequencies using the narrow body fleet.
DeleteThe avafage loads are over 90% that includes business class.
DeleteThis will change if JU finally start exotic destination charters from BEG in winter
DeleteHow come they had more passengers in the slowest and shortest month of February, than they had in eg. June?
ReplyDeleteBecause they had more flights in February. It is written in the article.
DeleteWinter months are generally stronger for Middle Eastern markets. Locals fly to Europe to see snow/go skiing and Europeans fly there for a warm Christmas or New Years. This is more apparent with Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but somewhat noticeable with Qatar as well
DeleteIt is written in the article why there was more passengers in winter. Would be nice if someone actually read the article before just looking at the table and commenting.
DeleteMore flights more passengers, logical, because winter is stronger than any other time of the year
DeleteFebruary is slowest in Europe, but Doha and Qatar's transfer destinations are not in Europe.
DeleteIt means JU should consider flying to SIN and maybe to one of African hubs.
ReplyDeleteLagos? 🤣
DeleteCairo or Addis Ababa seem possible due to transfer potential. But IST covers almost all of Africa
DeleteUpgauging from narrowbody to widebody service at least 5 days a week could be considered a success. Going up to daily widebody is undisputable success. First airline from the Middle East to fly daily widebody will control the market, not those sending narrowbodies 1, 2 or even 3 daily.
ReplyDeleteWhy would you say that? Honestly for me it doesn’t really make any difference. Even in business, the game changer would be QSuites, but they are not sending those for sure. In fact, it would be enough to send the 132-seater on that front, as those birds have the fully flat seats in business.
Delete@ anon 21:19
DeleteQR currently sends their older 320s to BEG and they have the horrible old reclining business class seats. It would be a huge upgrade in that sense, even if it’s not Q-Suite but the regular business class on the 787-8
They send their older A320s because the old configuration has 12 more seats. Considering the high load factor, they need it. I agree B787 would be ideal.
DeleteIt does have more seats, but solely at the expense of having the old recliner business class. Otherwise aircraft is exactly the same. That speak a lot about the standard and sensitivity of local business class pax.
DeleteAnd so what my point was is that there would be absolutely no difference in pax comfort between a 132-seater A320 and a B787. Both would be a real upgrade to what we have today.
And a step further would be the QSuites.
They are not going to use the 132 seat A320 because they need more seats, which the aircraft with recliners have.
DeleteWhy did they have to retire their A321's?
ReplyDeleteThey have retired them. it says so in the article
Delete"The passenger figures represent a 26% increase on its previous record during the first half of the pre-pandemic 2019, during which the airline maintained 70% of its flights with the 182-seat Airbus A321 aircraft, which it has since retired."
The question was WHY?
DeleteRead again.
Latest in 2027 I think we will see daily QR B788 and EK A359 in BEG, together with more China Routes, JU serving 3 or 4 North American Routes and hopefully flights to ICN TYO and DEL.
ReplyDeleteThats why I wrote yday, that a new BEG Airport needs to be planned or does current location has the space to passenger friendly expand? Passenger friendly means short walking distance for gate transfers and short walking distance to the retail area. Just to add more gates next to C17 to a possible gate C25 and than u need to connect to a A8 parked aircraft seems not to be attractive, also not for JU, who relies on BEG Airport offering short transfer times. Maybe I exagerate, but what would be the walking distance for a family of a possible expanded C25 to A8 gate? And does it stop with C25 or would it be possible to build a new terminal on the other side of the RWY? Also by 2035 a 2nd RWY would be probably needed as the current situation does not allow the 2 RWY to be used simult.
On Google Maps I see that on the other side of the RWY there are buildings. So any idea where the current airport could be expanded to make it ready for annual 20 mio passengers?
I've seen on one of the promo renderings, that there was a satelite terminal across the A gates with and undergound or bus connection to the main building. I think that 5 million passangers was the written number for that.
DeleteOk this might could be an option. Thank u
DeleteVreme je za siroki trup iz BEG!
ReplyDelete