Etihad Airways is set to announce “around ten new routes” in November raising hope the carrier could make a comeback to the region, with plenty of opportunities on offer. The Chief Commercial Officer of the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates revealed nine out of the ten routes will be completely new in the airline’s network, while one was previously served. Earlier this month, the carrier unveiled plans to launch flights to Warsaw and Prague. Etihad is charting an ambitious growth path through to 2030, aiming to triple the number of passengers carried to 33 million, double its fleet to 150 planes and increase its available seat kilometres by about 30% annually over the coming five years.
Etihad has only ever served Belgrade within the former Yugoslavia on the back of its equity investment in Air Serbia. Although the Emirati carrier no longer holds a stake in its Serbian counterpart, it recently restored a wide-ranging codeshare partnership with the airline. Etihad last served Belgrade in October 2020. In 2019 It carried 114.256 passengers on the Abu Dhabi - Belgrade route for an average annual load factor of 87.2%. The high loads were partially the result of its cooperation with Air Serbia which saw it funnel a notable number of Europe-bound passengers through Belgrade. Flights between the UAE and the Serbian capitals are now operated by Wizz Air Abu Dhabi. “Serbia is not currently part of our operating network, but it remains an important market for Etihad Airways. We continually review the forward development of the network, and as part of this process will be regularly evaluating the potential to reinstate a connection between Abu Dhabi and Belgrade”, the carrier said.
This summer, Sarajevo was served by eight airlines from the Middle East. Among them is Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, however, Sarajevo Airport has listed the Emirati capital as one of over twenty routes of strategic importance eligible for subsidies in the ongoing public call to airlines issued by the local tourism authority to improve the city’s air connectivity. The tender, which closes next Tuesday, is believed to have generated significant interest among both legacy and low cost carriers. The majority of airlines from the Middle East serving Sarajevo do so over the summer months when demand for travel between the two regions is at its peak.
Skopje Airport is seeking to restore connectivity to the Gulf after both Qatar Airways and Flydubai discontinued operations to the city following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. In late 2020, the Macedonian government said it had reached an agreement with Wizz Air Abu Dhabi to introduce flights to Skopje, however, the service never materialised. The government recently issued a public call for airlines to launch new routes to the country in return for subsidies, which has generated strong interest. Unlike previous such tenders, this one is open to airlines outside of Europe as well. The deadline for the submission of bids has been set for October 7.
Etihad had also previously engaged in talks with Zagreb Airport and the Slovenian government, indicating its interest in the region prior to its restructuring. A renewed focus on seasonal leisure destinations in Europe also put coastal airports in the region with good chances of welcoming Etihad in the future.
I think there is a good chance of them starting seasonal Sarajevo flights
ReplyDeleteI doubt they will come back to BEG with Wizz Air operating the route.
ReplyDeleteWould not be surprised if they plan to come in Zagreb.
ReplyDeleteThey will fly to Sarajevo. Bravo 🇧🇦
ReplyDeletePersian Gulf carriers as well as TK are massively profiting from the war in Ukraine. It was just announced that from late October Lufthansa will be discontinuing FRA-PEK, flights for next summer are not on sale. Their flight to PEK was 90 minutes longer than Air China's.
ReplyDeleteI am sure Etihad, like many others, are also profiting quite nicely from this. When it comes to BEG, things have changed since they flew this route.
flydubai operates double daily flights, TK added a daily rotation to IST, Hainan launched PEK, China Southern launched CAN, JU will do so tonight and more importantly Wizz Air Abu Dhabi has launched AUH flights.
I think EY never took BEG seriously and since they left Belgrade the market has moved on. I would love to see them back in BEG but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't do it. Had they remained committed to BEG today they could have easily operated double daily flights with many of them being on a widebody.
It’s hilarious that they suspended BEG in the first place and now it seems they realized the mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe Serbia-UAE market rapidly grew even during the pandemic, good luck now EY fighting for your presence on the market.
Indeed. They have to simple choices:
Delete1. the BA way - return with a modest number of frequencies and hope for the best while your competition is far more competitive.
2. the KL way - go big or go home. Restore daily flights, invest in marketing and fight to regain lost marketshare. They were quite known here so they have an advantage over their competition. Many used to fly them in the past.
BEG departures to the east today:
Delete09.20 IST TK B738
11.00 CAN CZ B789
12.15 IST JU A319
12.40 DOH QR A320
14.00 DXB FZ B7M8
15.45 IST TK B738
16.50 SAW PC A321
17.35 AUH 5W A321
20.20 IST TK A320
23.55 DXB FZ B7M8
00.20 CAN JU A332
00.45 IST JU A319
Good luck to EY if they want to fight all this.
If JU had a spare aircraft, they could easily start BEG-AUH and fight with W6.
DeleteWith wide network that JU is now offering and new codeshare with EY, it could be a different story as it was 10 years ago.
Personally I don't think that would be wise. Air Serbia should focus on building its own hub in BEG. Anything EY can offer so can TK.
DeleteOn top of that, flights to IST are shorter, costs are lower and there is incomparably more O&D demand.
Flights to AUH are long, require detours due to political instability and would occup a plane for many hours. Let Etihad return to BEG and they can profit from JU's growing network. Maybe JU would have more luck with them than with Qatar Airways.
The Qatar codeshare failure surprisingly didn't give almost any results.
DeleteIndeed, it was announced with so much excitement and then we ended up with less flights in summer than we had in winter. Obviously that BEG was not such a strong performer as JU hoped it would be. Qatar Airways obviously had other priorities despite Marek being quite engaged from what I remember.
Delete@anon 09:17
DeleteOn top of that, on other days you have Hainan to PEK, JU to TSN and in couple of months to PVG and it's a matter of time when the third Chinese carrier step in and start PVG, Xiamen or some other China megapolis. Also count FZ double daily flights. And all of that without Aeriflot for two years. Crazy.
* correction, just saw you already put double daily FZ. Shame on me.
DeleteI feel like Dubrovnik or Split have the best chances. Wizz Air already serves both Belgrade and Sarajevo and the two coastal cities have potential with transfers
ReplyDeleteBut maybe the Skopje tender is too good to turn down, who knows
I also think DBV is a strong possibility.
DeleteMy guess is we will see more of Air Arabia Abu Dhabi in the region rather than Etihad but let's wait and see.
ReplyDeleteWell they can get some piece of the cake from the tenders why not :))
Deletethe answer is only one : Sarajevo
ReplyDeleteIn joking meaning yes it is
DeleteI would not exclude Ljubljana as the most underserved market in ex-yu.
ReplyDeleteThat's not true at all
DeleteLjubljana 3 times weekly is coming ;)
DeleteThree more weekly flights to FRA you mean? lol
DeleteJust like with TAROM flights?
DeleteIt's so atypical that despite all the Middle East routes from Sarajevo, neither Emirates nor Etihad are present there.
ReplyDeleteAnd that almost all flights from the Middle East are seasonal
DeleteJust a matter of time!
DeleteFlyDubai, W6 and Air Arabia have the market covered.
DeleteW6 cancelled the flights over winter
DeleteNeither emirates of etihad will go in Sarajevo , who believes in that ?
DeleteSarajevo definitely, would be awesome to see both Etihad and Emirates there!
ReplyDeleteThat will never happend , sarajevo is already covered from the other airlines. Wizz,arabia ....
Delete16:34 Chances might be low (which they are), but never 0.
Delete18:08 thats true , but do you know how many bigger and better airports in europe are not served from this two airlines ? Doesn't make a sense for me ..
DeleteDuring all this crisis between Israel and Lebanon EY has continued flying to TLV! 🇦🇪🇮🇱
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable...
DeleteWow Etihad is really back in expansion mode. Another 10 new routes and they already announced 2 a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteA LJU/ZAG - AUH connection would be great.
ReplyDeleteDo people really thing Etihad and W6. are conflicting in any way???
ReplyDeleteWizz already cut winter flights from sarajevo. No chance for etihad or emirates , flydubai and arabia doing their job.
DeleteATH has both W6 and Etihad flying to AUH while Aegean is also starting 3 weekly AUH from November.
DeleteIt has to be BEG (for the returning flight). The codeshare they have with JU makes no sense since it’s mostly 3 stop flights that can easily be two stops.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a bigger chance of them announcing return to Sao Paolo than BEG.
DeleteMaybe Minsk.
DeleteI think that BEG is only serious option in former YU. Others are dwarf airports with dwarf numbers Better option would be AS to restore flights to Abu Dhabi with codeshare with Etihad.
Delete...or Dubai with A330.
DeleteThe list of destinations they no longer serve compared to 2019 is big. I'm assuming they are not talking about some route from 10 years ago so these are the ones that they served in 2019 that they no longer do: Belgrade, Brisbane, Chengdu, Dusseldorf, Sao Paolo, Hong Kong, Katmandu, Los Angeles, Lagos, Madinah, Minsk, Nairobi, Almaty and Rabat. I didn't include Khartoum since the airport is destroyed, Beijing because they now serve Daxing and Sheremetyevo since they switched airports. So I think the chances of them returning to Belgrade are extremely slim since they say just one route was previously operated. If it were some ex-Yu route I think they would have announced it together with Warsaw and Prague. The only destination I see potentially being announced is Dubrovnik as seasonal summer route.
DeleteWhat you’re missing is that this is about A320/A321 range. You can’t fly to Sao Paolo on a narrow body.
DeleteThe only destinations that you can fly on a 320/321 from the listed ones are Minsk, Almaty and Rabat. It’s not gonna be Minsk for obvious reasons.
They signed a codeshare with JU 6 months ago that makes no sense - since it goes through Athens, Vienna, Rome and Milano and all of those have direct flights to Zagreb, Sarajevo etc that don’t require an additional stop in Belgrade. It makes sense that they make the codeshare realistic w a direct flight to BEG
No one said it will be an A320 destination. So you made that up.
DeleteThat is a very high load factor for AUH-BEG-AUH, especially since in 2019 they operated double daily flights during the summer.
ReplyDeleteWould make sense if they started Sarajevo.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible they apply on the Macedonian tender ? The destinations that currently have been applied are more then 10 , but we dont know them , and also the airlines. Minister couple days ago said couple of them are not low cost airlines.
ReplyDeleteCould be Zagreb, both countries' foreign ministers met up about a month ago and announced a new Croatian embassy in Abu Dhabi.
ReplyDeleteBelgrade definitely has extra room for Etihad.
ReplyDeleteQatar Airways is always completely full and has to shy away passengers that want to book with them.
Thus three to four weekly flights would be a good for the beginning.
Also Etihad is still in the mind of everyone as a lot of people used to fly them on this route.