PREMIUM
Wizz Air announced its 41st base in Sarajevo earlier this week. The airline will station an Airbus A320 aircraft in the city in May and launch nine new routes to seven countries. Wizz Air’s history in Bosnia and Herzegovina dates back to May 2013 when it operated its first flight from Tuzla to Malmo. The airline has carried almost three million passengers to and from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past eight years. As part of Wizz’s expansion, the budget carrier will increase its operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina by 50% and remains the market leader. The carrier will introduce flights to airports covering a number of large European cities which have been lacking nonstop flights to Sarajevo. They include Charleroi, Copenhagen, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Gothenburg, London Luton, Memmingen, Basel and Beauvais, totaling in more than 250.000 seats from Sarajevo in 2021.
Wizz Air will be primarily serving the Bosnian diaspora. London is one of Sarajevo’s top unserved routes with 21.250 passengers flying indirectly between the two in 2019. Wizz previously operated Tuzla - Luton, however, the service was terminated in 2017. In 2019, FlyBosnia attempted to serve the British capital but its high fares and almost non-extant marketing saw few passengers. The majority of travellers have been flying between Sarajevo and London via Vienna, followed by Munich, Zagreb and Istanbul. As a result, Austrian Airlines carried 46% of all indirect passengers on the route, followed by Lufthansa, Croatia Airlines and Turkish Airlines.
Amsterdam is another top unserved city from Sarajevo, which will be indirectly covered by Wizz Air’s Eindhoven route. In 2019, 20.255 travellers flew between Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital and the Netherland’s largest city. Austrian was again the most popular feeder airline, capturing 42% of the market. It was followed by Croatia Airlines and Air Serbia, which both shuttled 17% of all passengers between the two cities.
Paris was Sarajevo’s sixth top unserved route in 2019, with 14.979 passengers flying indirectly between the two. Similar to Amsterdam, Austrian Airlines, Air Serbia and Croatia Airlines were the most popular transfer carriers, with Austrian handling 4.446 travellers, while the Serbian and Croatian national airlines each held a 19% market share.
Copenhagen saw some 14.000 travellers in and out of Sarajevo, with Air Serbia handling the bulk of passengers. It carried 60% of those that travelled and was followed by Austrian Airlines and Turkish Airlines.
Brussels is also among the top ten unserved destinations out of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital with 11.253 passengers flying between the two. Wizz Air will serve the route through Charleroi. Lufthansa accounted for 21% of all passengers handled between the two cities, followed closely by Croatia Airlines and Turkish Airlines.
Wizz Air will see indirect competition on two of its routes - Memmingen, which is contested by Lufthansa that flies to Munich, as well as Dortmund, which is nearby Cologne, that is served by Eurowings. All of these German cities have a sizable number of expatriates from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sweden is a stronghold for the Bosnian diaspora, with almost 6.000 passengers flying between Sarajevo and Gothenburg in 2019. Lufthansa was the main feeder airline, accounting for 56% of passengers carried, followed by Austrian Airlines and Turkish Airlines.
Wizz Air is hoping to cover Zurich with its new Basel service as Switzerland’s largest city is just 92 kilometres away. Jointly, over 33.000 passengers flew between Sarajevo and these two destinations.
All of the abovementioned figures exclude the leakage to Tuzla, with some Sarajevo-based passengers opting to fly out of Wizz Air’s first base in Bosnia which is just 110 kilometres away. The above demand also excludes bus coaches, which remain big business in the country for international travel. Out of the new destinations that will be launched from Sarajevo, Wizz Air already serves five from Tuzla - Basel, Dortmund, Eindhoven, Memmingen and Gothenburg. At this point, it remains to be seen whether there will be any route consolidation between Wizz Air’s two bases.