Norwegian Air Shuttle has become the latest carrier to be granted subsidies for the upkeep of its flights to Sarajevo following a public call that was primarily aimed at the introduction of new routes. Norwegian maintains services from Oslo and Stockholm to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital on a seasonal summer basis.
It is expected to upgrade the pair to year-round operations following the financial assistance, although this is yet to be confirmed. The only other carrier to apply for the latest subsidy tender was Air Arabia, however, its application was submitted past the set deadline and was not taken into consideration as a result.
The development brings the total number of routes subsidised out of Sarajevo to fifteen. The policy, launched last year by the local tourism authority, has attracted Ryanair, which will commence flights from Bergamo, Charleroi, Gothenburg, London Stansted, Memmingen and Thessaloniki, although the latter is not part of the subsidy program, Aegean Airlines with services from Athens and Skopje, SunExpress from Antalya and Izmir, as well as Wizz Air with a planned new service from Rome (yet to be scheduled). The remaining routes that will now receive subsidies are already served, including Abu Dhabi by Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, Warsaw by LOT Polish Airlines, and the abovementioned Oslo and Stockholm.
Sarajevo Airport is poised for strong growth this summer based on existing scheduled capacity. At this point, there are 1.628.399 seats on the market on Sarajevo flights this summer, representing an increase of 29.7% compared to the same period last year, and up 14% on the previous record in the summer of 2022.
Turkish Airlines will be the largest carrier in Sarajevo based on available capacity, followed by Pegasus Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi and Flydubai. Ryanair, which commences operations to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital at the end of next month, will become the sixth largest airline in Sarajevo.
Carriers that already maintain operations to Sarajevo that will increase their frequencies this summer compared to last include Jazeera Airways, Flynas, Flyadeal, Qatar Airways and Kuwait Airways, to name a few, Ex-Yu Aviation news reports.
