✈Eurowings adds Berlin Tegel – Sarajevo flights from June

Eurowings from June 2019 is adding new service from Berlin, with the offering of Berlin Tegel – Sarajevo route. From 03JUN19, this route will be served twice a week, on board germanwings Airbus A319 aircraft.

EW8492 TXL1245 – 1440SJJ 319 15
EW8493 SJJ1600 – 1755TXL 319 15


Source: Routes Online

✈ Lufthansa performance at Sarajevo International Airport in 2015.

Lufthansa and its daughter companies (Austrian Airlines, Germanwings and Swiss Int. Airlines) are holding big market share at Sarajevo International Airport and dominating in transfer passengers to North America via Munich, Vienna and Zurich. Lufthansa is offering one daily flight to Munich, while Germanwings is connecting Sarajevo with Cologne with three weekly flights and one weekly to Stuttgart. Austrian Airlines is offering two daily flights from Vienna, and latest addition is Swiss with three weekly flights to Zurich. During summer Lufthansa is operating flights with Airbus 319/320/321 aircraft depending on demand, offering connections from its hub in Munich to Lufthansa’s worldwide network. During Winter timetable flights are operated by Lufthansa City Line with Embraer 190 aircraft.

✈Bigger airplanes are daily sight at Sarajevo International Airport

Swiss Airbus 320 HB-IJF on todays flight Zurich-Sarajevo

Don’t be surprised if you see Turkish Airlines wide body aircraft operating flights between Istanbul and Sarajevo this summer. With beginning of summer schedule Sarajevo International Airport is seeing increase in usage of larger aircraft serving the airport. Turkish Airlines is sending Airbus 321 almost daily on one of its three daily flights from Istanbul. On some days all three flights are operated with Airbus 321 (largest narrow body aircraft in airlines fleet with seating capacity up to 194 passengers). Austrian Airlines is another airline using larger aircraft this summer. In the past years most of the flights were operated once daily with Airbus 319 and once daily with Fokker 100. As of beginning of summer timetable Austrian Airlines is operating twice daily flights from Vienna with Airbus 320 featuring 168 seats and on some days Airbus 321 with 200 seats. Lufthansa is using Airbus 320 on its flights from Munich and some days Airbus 321. Today’s flight from Zurich with Swiss International Airlines was operated with Airbus 320 which has almost double the capacity of the scheduled Avro RJ. This summer Air Serbia is using ATR-72 with 66 seats instead of much larger Airbus 319. Last summer season Air Serbia was operating mix of ATR-72, Boeing 737-300 and Airbus 319 on flights from Belgrade. Main reason for Air Serbia not using larger aircraft is shortage in fleet during busy summer season for the airline. Pegasus, Norwegian and Flydubai all fly to Sarajevo with Boeing 737-800 with 189 seats. Germanwings is using Airbus 319 with 144 seats and as of this year for the first time on some days Germanwings is using Airbus 320 on flights to Stuttgart and Cologne. With usage of larger aircraft Sarajevo International Airport is well on the way to reach 800.000 passengers this year.

Source: FlyingBosnian

Deepest condolences for Germanwings flight 4U 9525

Deepest condolences from Bosnia and Herzegovina  to relatives of 144 passengers and six crew members of Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf who suffered an accident over the French Alps today.May their souls rest in peace and  may the comfort of God help the grieving families during this difficult time. 

✈ Lufthasa Group is dominating at Sarajevo International Airport

Statistical data is showing that airlines operating under the Lufthansa umbrella are dominating at Sarajevo International Airport. Airlines belonging to the Lufthansa group operating at Sarajevo Airport are as follows; Lufthansa, Lufthansa City Line, Austrian Airlines, Germanwings and as of April 2015-  Swiss International Airlines. They are currently transporting more passengers than any other airline from Sarajevo.  In the days to come I will be posting detailed statistical data for some airports served from Sarajevo, including (Munich, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Vienna and Cologne) and also some additional routes from Tuzla for 2013 and partially 2014.

Lufthansa A320 at Sarajevo airport, photo by Kontrolaletenja

In 2013 Lufthansa Group carried 340.672 passengers to & from Sarajevo out of total 665.638 passengers using the airport that year. Lufthansa Group’s share at Sarajevo International Airport in 2013 was 51.18%. In 2014 this number started changing for the first time with a large presence of Turkish Airlines and with the arrival of Pegasus Airlines. Air Serbia (Etihad Group) is planning to take advantage of the transfer passengers from Sarajevo this summer with the use of a larger aircraft between Belgrade and Sarajevo(Airbus 319 will be used in summer timetable instead of ATR-72). Sarajevo airport has been a stronghold of Star Alliance and hopefully this will change with growing presence of Air Serbia and the possible arrival of an airline from another airline alliance, preferably Alitalia (Sky Team); with flights to Rome or Milan, or KLM (Sky Team) with flights to Amsterdam. The great factor in breaking the Star Alliance monopoly would be a strong national carrier of Bosnia and Herzegovina but at the moment this is unfortunately not possible due to BH Airlines being on the verge of ceasing operations.  However, another great choice for passengers would be the arrival of low cost airlines such as Wizzair, which would definitely make air travel more affordable for the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and shake up Lufthansa group monopoly. Slowly but surely with new airlines arriving Star Alliance monopoly should be lessen every year, with this year addition of FlyDubai flights to Dubai and Wizzair adding more routes from Tuzla will push Star Alliance airlines to lower the price of tickets to Sarajevo. For the first time ever it is possible to find flights at  significantly better price to Sarajevo than Zagreb or Belgarde from destinations across USA and Canada.    

Lufthansa group passengers statistics for Sarajevo airport for the year 2013.

Airline	Route	Number of passengers
Luthansa	Munich-Sarajevo-Munich	142.282
Austrian Airlines	Vienna-Sarajevo-Vienna	119.272
Germanwings	Cologne-Sarajevo-Cologne	79.118
Total Lufthansa Group		340.672