Bosnia and Herzegovina Aviation News

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

✈Alicante – Sarajevo air link in works!

Alicante-Elche Airport

ENG - Bojan Dozet, Honorary Consul of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Spain for the regions of Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia in Alicante, met with Laura Navarro, the Director of Alicante Airport. Their meeting explored the possibilities of establishing an air link with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Director Navarro showed readiness and expressed interest in Alicante Airport being the first airport in Spain to offer direct flights to Sarajevo, with the possibility to establish a connection with other cities from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the future. Currently, we do not have direct flights between our countries, and we hope that this is the first step that will ultimately lead to the establishment of a direct air link and the strengthening of economic, cultural, and tourist ties between our countries.

✈ Wizz Air announces new destination from Banja Luka

Wizz Air has announced its sixth route from Banja Luka. The carrier will introduce flights from Banja Luka to Hamburg beginning December 17, 2021. Flights will operate twice weekly on Mondays and Fridays with Airbus 320 aircraft

✈ Lufthansa adds second daily Frankfurt-Sarajevo service

Lufthansa added second daily service from Frankfurt to Sarajevo from the beginning of the 2022 summer season. The second daily flight (LH 1546) will be leaving Frankfurt at 21:00 arriving in Sarajevo at 22:45. The Airbus 319 aircraft will stay in Sarajevo overnight, leaving for Frankfurt at 06:55, arriving in Frankfurt at 08:45. With the second daily flight and early arrival in Frankfurt, Lufthansa will offer very wide connections to its network in the USA and Canada.

✈ Wizz Air Abu Dhabi to launch Sarajevo flights

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi will launch two weekly flights from Abu Dhabi to Sarajevo beginning October 03. Flights are scheduled to operate with airline’s brand-new Airbus 321neo aircraft offering 239 seats. With yesterday’s expansion announcement, by the end of this year Wizz Air will offer connection to 17 destinations out of its Sarajevo base. United Arab Emirates – Sarajevo is very popular for air travel during summer months with flights being operated by Flydubai up to 3x daily and Air Arabia 2x daily. From May 2023 it is very likely that Wizz Air will operate daily flights between Abu Dhabi and Sarajevo.

Wizz Air has announced two new routes from Tuzla International Airport from December. Milan-Malpensa in Itay and Nuremberg in Germany, with two weekly flights each. Both routes will be operated by the aircraft that are not Tuzla based. The airline also plans to increase Tuzla operations in upcoming winter season with additional flights to Basel, Friedrichshafen, Gothenburg, Malmo, Vaxjo and Vienna.

✈ Wizz Air adds 2nd aircraft and 7 new routes from Sarajevo!

Wizz Air announced today the allocation of second aircraft to its Sarajevo base. The Airbus A320 will join the fleet in December 2021, enabling the start of 7 new routes from Sarajevo to Billund, Cologne, Frankfurt-Hahn, Hamburg, Malmo, Oslo-Sandefjord and Venice-Treviso. All new routes will operate twice per week except Cologne and Malmo which will operate three times per week.

✈ Trip report: Sarajevo (SJJ) – Zagreb (ZAG) – Istanbul (IST)

Travel date: July 20, 2021.

Airline: Croatia Airlines and Turkish Airlines

I was flying yesterday from Sarajevo to Istanbul via Zagreb. My first flight was on Croatia Airlines Dash 8-400 (reg. 9A-CQA), the second one on Turkish Airlines Airbus 321 (reg. TC-JTG). Early morning at Sarajevo Airport was kind of busy with three flights leaving in one hour time: Wizz Air to Dortmund, Croatia Airlines to Zagreb and Austrian Airlines to Vienna. While I was waiting for my flight, I had a chance to talk to a agent who was working on Dortmund flight, she informed me that Wizz Air flight to Dortmund was almost full with only 5 empty seats. My flight to Zagreb was surprisingly empty!? I took this flight many times in the past and usually this flight was always full of transfer passengers to the USA and Canada. It looks like Turkish Airlines and Austrian Airlines are doing majority of transfer to North America now. Our Zagreb flight OU341 had only 17 passengers, only a small bottle of water was served, which is okay for such a short flight (it took us 35 minutes from Sarajevo to reach our gate at Zagreb Airport). This was my first time visiting new Zagreb Airport terminal, compared to the old one is huge improvement. I was surprised how empty the whole airport was, barely any passengers! While I was waiting at the gate for my flight to Istanbul, next to us Ryanair was boarding the flight to Milan-Bergamo, I counted 95 passengers boarding that flight. Our flight to Istanbul was on Airbus 321 aircraft (TC-JTG) with 103 passengers.

Sarajevo Airport

Zagreb Airport

Istanbul Airport

Source: Flying Bosnian

Saturday, July 17, 2021

✈ Trip report: Chicago (ORD) – Istanbul (IST) – Sarajevo (SJJ)

Turkish Airlines Airbus 321neo (delivered June 14. 2021)

I was flying from the USA to Bosnia yesterday, Seattle (SEA) – Chicago (ORD) – Istanbul (IST) – Sarajevo (SJJ). I was surprised on how many people were flying from Chicago to Sarajevo via Istanbul. There were at least 60 passengers from Chicago, connecting on Turkish Airlines flight to Sarajevo. Istanbul new airport is excellent, very specious, and modern. My flight from Istanbul to Sarajevo was on Turkish Airlines brand new Airbus 321neo aircraft (TC-LTH). The flight was completely booked in economy class (162 seats), while business class had eight empty seats out of 20. Photos from the flight

During last month, Bosnian airports recorded 105.434 passengers, representing 53% of passengers traffic recorded in June of 2019, when 197.051 travelled through all four international airports in the country . Out of four international airports in Bosnia and Herzegovina, only Mostar Airport did not record any traffic. Eurowings was the only airline scheduling flights from Dusseldorf to Mostar, but due to low demand, has decided to cancel the flights, leaving Mostar Airport without any flights this summer season.