Sarajevo Airport is expected to see strong passenger growth in the coming months with a number of carriers set to launch flights to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital. Traffic from the Saudi Arabian market will see the greatest capacity increase with two airlines to operate sixteen weekly flights between the two countries. Budget airline Flynas announced on Friday that it would introduce services from Jeddah to Sarajevo as of July 1, in addition to the previously scheduled Riyadh route. The airline’s Senior Commercial Vice President, Stefan Magiera, said, “Effective July 1, Flynas will launch twice weekly nonstop flights between Jeddah and the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Due to high demand, we will also increase the number of weekly nonstop flights between Riyadh and Sarajevo from three to five per week”. As a result, the airline will operate daily flights to Sarajevo.The Saudi-backed FlyBosnia will introduce daily flights to Riyadh and a one weekly service to Jeddah. In addition, the Sarajevo-based airline will operate a seasonal one weekly service to Gassim in central Saudi Arabia, linking the two cities for the first time. FlyBosnia will also link Sarajevo with Kuwait City starting this June. A total of three weekly flights are planned on the route. The start-up is expected to introduce additional new destinations in the coming period. “Our approach at FlyBosnia has always been the same – to link Bosnia and Herzegovina with nonstop flights on select routes in Europe and the Middle East where there is sufficient demand. We will continue expanding our network as our fleet grows”, the airline’s CEO, Chris Gabriel, said recently.
On the European front, Aegean Airlines will commence seasonal two weekly flights from Athens to Sarajevo in mid-June. The service will be maintained with a 78-seat Dash 8 turboprop aircraft operated by its regional subsidiary Olympic Air. Furthermore, low cost carrier Eurowings will introduce a new service between Berlin and Sarajevo. Flights will commence tomorrow and run twice per week, each Monday and Friday. They will complement the airline’s existing year-round services from Cologne and Stuttgart to Sarajevo. Previously, Eurowings’ predecessor Germanwings, operated flights between the German and Bosnian capital for less than a year from April 2014 until March 2015, after which the service was canceled. Starting June 21, Norwegian Air Shuttle will introduce seasonal services between Gothenburg and Sarajevo, albeit on a low frequency basis. Flights will run once per week for a total of eight weeks, Ex-Yu Aviation News reports.
