The Macedonian Ministry for Transport has launched a new public call, the second this year, for the introduction of new routes from both Skopje and Ohrid airports between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2027, in return for subsidies. The tender is open to all airlines that carried at least five million passengers in 2023 and achieved a net profit of at least ten million euros that same year. Applications for the financial support will be reviewed and approved on a first-come, first-serve basis until the funds allocated by the government, amounting to 3.36 million euros, are exhausted. The state will provide each airline with nine euros per arriving passenger into Skopje and twelve euros per arriving traveller into Ohrid on the subsidised route(s).
Airlines can apply for the subsidies throughout the duration of the period covered by the state’s financial support program - 2025, 2026 and 2027. “With this second call, the Ministry aims to further develop air traffic, enhance competition, and provide more travel options for passengers. By attracting more airlines and diversifying destinations, the program is expected to increase passenger traffic and drive economic growth”, the Ministry for Transport said in a statement. Financial support will be granted based on factors such as the duration of operations, the frequency of weekly flights, the attractiveness of the destination airport, and the number of seats available for sale.
The previous public call, concluded in October, allocated 6.1 million euros to airlines to support the launch of new routes over the same three-year period. The Ministry selected Wizz Air, Turkish Airlines, and Flydubai as beneficiaries. Wizz Air committed to introducing flights from Skopje to Barcelona, Lyon, and Stuttgart, as well as from Ohrid to Basel. Turkish Airlines announced plans to operate flights between Istanbul and Ohrid, while Flydubai will connect Dubai with Skopje. Wizz Air has scheduled and started ticket sales for its new routes from Skopje, while Turkish Airlines has done the same for its Ohrid service.
Who is going to apply after just 2 months?
ReplyDeleteThe end date is in 3 years unless all the money is awarded before so I'm guessing at some point someone will apply.
DeleteI would love to see Air France, KLM, SAS, ITA, Swiss or Iberia apply.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteIf Iberia wanted to apply they could do that on the first tender , all other airlines you mentioned will never come here my friend , we couldnt bring Ryanair not a serious airline :D understand and dont expect WOW in the end it is Wizz air
DeleteI wish swiss air fly 2 a week to ohrid
DeleteBut to have good connection 2-3 hour waiting
Not like turkish from ohrid 2 days a week 5-6 hour wait is not good
Maybe we see easyJet apply with those ORY-SKP plans
ReplyDeleteHope so
DeleteOr Transavia?
DeleteWe could see Transavia launch AMS not ORY
DeleteWhy not ORY? They are launching ORY-BEG and ORY-RMO this summer, clearly an Eastern Europe expansion is on their mind.
DeleteAgain...
ReplyDeletewhy not
DeleteWhy not , everyone does that!
DeleteWhat else can be launched from SKP?
ReplyDeleteMore regular airlines with flights to actual hubs please.
DeleteI agree. We really need is flights to major hubs like LHR, CDG, MUC, AMS, FCO, BRU
DeleteAt least one of those
DeleteIf easyjet launch Orly, CDG is not in game thats my opinion , FCO is already served from W6 ...
Deletebut we could se Amsterdam,Munich,Prague,Madrid ...
Prague is not a hub anymore, just an airport with huge p2p demand
DeleteMunich would be great, though, it offers good connections across Europe and hosts a large Macedonian and Albanian diaspora
LHR has zero chance of being launched by BA.
Delete09:49 I didnt know this for Prague , thank you. For sure Munich will be a great addition , but its maybe possiblr we see Euro wings to jump in for this route ?🤔
Delete09:52 I agree with that , not enough demand for LHR ,Stansted and Gatwick would be better.
DeleteI hope we see Qatar Airways restore flights.
ReplyDeleteQR is out for good unfortunately.
DeleteWizz Air Abu Dhabi should definitely launch AUH-SKP. I think they could be very successful against Flydubai.
DeleteQatar for our luck probably will never come back to SKP , not in near future , they dont see SKP as potential airport 😒
DeleteI did travel with QA to Asia twice from SOF, and to be honest, the population, the density, the tourism, economy and all the other things in Asia are much more attractive then all these Balkan airports dreaming to have Qatar on their list. Simply they are short of planes, and even if they do they will probably allocate it somewhere else
DeleteZurich is the second busiest route out of Skopje so it's beyond me how Swiss mainline failed in Skopje. It would be nice if they came back.
ReplyDeleteProbably never , they already have an airline who is doing the job great...
DeleteThere's factors other than sheer profitability when it comes to massive hub airlines like SWISS. Like share of transfers, deals with alliance members, plane shortage, etc.
DeleteEdit: wait SWISS does serve Skopje with Edelweiss lol, thought it was only ch.air
DeleteThats what I write , there is already 2 airlines doing the job great , not place and real demand for Swiss :D
DeleteWhat could/should happen though is for Edelweiss to increase their frequencies to daily, just like Chair. Both of them use A320 on their SKP routes.
DeleteAnd both of them are full :))
DeleteI only flew this route once, but yes, it was an A320 and it was indeed full. And with many transfers from the US.
DeleteOf course can't extrapolate based on only 1 flight, but encouraging fact was that it was full despite off season, was sometime end of October
It is full even in November,December , thats encouraging.
DeleteExcellent news
ReplyDeleteI wish it could be different and better ,but the experience from the first tender 2 months ago doesnt promise me alot or even a surprise , usually this calls in the end Wizz air eats them all so ... :D but ok I wish I am wrong :))
ReplyDeleteI think since the minister already mentioned that there will be 4 more routes from SKP and 2 from OHD by the end of the year, the routes and the airlines is known already :)
ReplyDeleteYes, i also heard that. Think Ohrid- Malmo is opening for sure
DeleteOf course , it is call for Wizz to open couple routes and close couple more ... :D
Deletelol the minister. The same tarot lady that told me there will be at least 10 new destinations with the previous tender. Pinocchio!
DeleteWe need more connection flight from ohrid to munich or austria but to have 2-3 hour connection with usa thru this countries not 6-10 hours
DeleteAgain?
ReplyDeleteHow about founding a new national airline called 'Air Subsidy '?
Cause it seems that's all Macedonia is about.
Ok ajde
Deleteyes, since you seem to be a genius pls take the 8 million for the subsidies and establish a national airline with it.
DeleteJust to write a comment even its without a sense , who the hell open airline with 8m euro investment ? To open and be like Montenegro , no thank you , or just money laundering , that will be the positive site.
Delete11,13
DeleteHow can it be that an airport that has over 4 million is not developed?
Can't you understand where the problem is with Skopje? No subsidies can help when Pristina airport is too close to Skopje. Prn which is one of the most developed in the region takes passengers from N. Macedonia, South Serbia, and Montenegro. Skopje can be saved only by acquiring new lines where Prn does not have.
ReplyDeletePRN one of the most developed in the region? More than half of its traffic is on charter basis and over 90% of its traffic is for diaspora.
Delete10:32 you dont know what u are writing , PRN is the most developing in the region with all the traffic with based on charters and diaspora to Swiss and Germany , and It doesnt take any passengers from other countries , its all a out bad managing SKP , btw I fly every month from SKP half of the pax are kosovars and all the taxi cars outside are from kosovo , plus vranje cars from serbia
DeleteThis Reisebüro principle which seems so unique to PRN I totally do not get tbh.
DeleteWhy on earth would you want to pay for, I guess, overpriced tickets when you can just book wizzair?
@10.45 and alot of the German routes to Thessaloniki has a big chunk of Macedonians using it, aswell as SAS from Stockholm/Copenhagen with passangers from Canada/US. See anybody crying over it? Pristina is for sure not developed.
DeleteThats what I am saying , pristina is not tounching skopje at all , the problem is the bad managing of TAV they start working hard now , but they sleep since 2019 ...thesaloniki maybe have bigger effect for germany and scandinavia flights. Skopje has potential just need hard work!!
DeleteThe advertising at PRN is in german, 99% of their clients are Swiss and German diaspora
DeletePRN one of the most developed? How? Please elaborate.
Delete100.000 macedonians flew from Tirana this year results show.
DeletePRN has just over a million passengers than Skopje and Ohrid combined. Many people talk about a diaspora from Kosovo, but they do not travel every day at home. Most people go in the summer, when you see numbers that also increase. Some in winter can happen. The highway from Blacr towards Pristina is full of cars with Mak registrar. Many from Niš and all of Sandzak. Why are you disappointed and jealous of Prn's success?
ReplyDeletePristina has the highest numbers in summer , the winter is slow , because diaspora is going home for summer and new years timing. The cars u see on blace highway towards pristina are albanians from macedonia who have cousins there and going there couple times in a month , nothing related to the airport. Do not judge by that. The problem in skopje is TAV managing and giving everythinf to one airline Wizz air , instead of bringing another ones , and when engine problems happend skopje gets fucked up ,and now Wizz restore alot of flights but leave skopje last in the line and thats thank you from them for all this year sucking up our money
DeleteOnly way for SKP to keep up is to offer extra destinations which PRN doesn't serve.
ReplyDeleteMalta is a good example. Next Year Barcelona, Lyon, and so on....
Munich,Madrid, Abu Dhabi sbould be on the radar , and some Scandinavian routes also are in need...
Delete3.3 mil is not such a big sum. It cannot create demand that just does not exist. SKP has reached the max of potential under the underling circumstances. Do not blame TAV, they cannot do much more than this.
ReplyDeletelol
DeleteBut it's true.
Deletethey had a growth of 50% in January before the Wizz mess started ...
DeleteThey already gave over 6 million in the first round.
Deleteagain no seasonal routes to OHD allowed... Kakva glupost
ReplyDeleteFinancial support will be granted based on factors such as the attractiveness of the destination airport.
ReplyDeleteSingapore is very attractive. Who comes up with this criteria? 🤡
Of course , if one destination is not attractive why should be launched ? Why u compare things like this with Singapore ? Which country in Ex yu region or even this part of Europe is connected to singapore ?
DeleteIf there is no demand and attraction why the route will be launched ? Think little and use ur brain , not just comment ;)
SKP is connected to some very unattractive airports like Frankfurt Hahn Airport. So much about the importance of attractiveness of the destination airport.
DeleteThat destinations is very positive and used by our people , its very frequent route ... even with Frankfurt main it still stays attractive for our diaspora there.
DeleteAttractive and affordable is not the same. HHN is affordable, not attractive.
DeleteFor us attractive means affordable , we are not Emirates bro :D
DeleteWasn't there a rumor that six new routes will be announced out of Macedonia by the end of this year? Does this somehow correlate with this news?
ReplyDeleteYes because there is not a time frame like it was on the previous one which was 1 month for collection applications , on this tender there is no timing as I see
DeleteWhen will the announcement be of new routes?
ReplyDeleteOn the previous there was 1 month time frame for applications , now on this one I didnt see any timing .. its possible days before new year we see it
DeleteMaybe this week?
DeleteNot sure for this week but around next Monday yes , because the tender is open on 16.12.2024 , or other scenario after 16.01.2025
DeleteWhat about the government FINALLY putting down some rails to the airport from the main railway station, so that we can enter the 20th century? Is it that hard?
ReplyDelete