Wizz Air and Ryanair shed Niš network
Low cost carrier Ryanair has announced it will discontinue flights between Weeze and Niš at the start of the 2019 summer season, following on from Wizz Air's decision to cancel services from Eindhoven earlier this year, as well as flights from Malmo from January 2019. It comes as the airport registered 29.855 passengers in October, down 6.6% on the same month last year. In a statement, Ryanair said, "Following commercial and operational analysis, the route between Niš and Dusseldorf (Weeze) is being cancelled as of the 2019 summer season. Our Niš passengers can use one of our other flights from the airport to Berlin, Bratislava, Milan, Bergamo and Stockholm".
Critics believe the latest suspension is linked to the government's controversial takeover of the airport in August this year and the dismissal of its former management. Since then, Wizz Air is the only airline to have launched a new route to Niš (from Vienna), however, these flights were announced as early as January. The route has also been downgraded recently. Services between Vienna and Niš will run twice per week until February 14, after which they will be increased to three weekly. Initially, flights were to operate three times per week for the entire winter season with an Airbus A321 aircraft. In terms of equipment, the Vienna - Niš service is being operated with an A320, with the A321 used only during the route's first week of operations and selected weeks in November and December. From mid-February, one weekly flight will operate with the A321 and the other two with the A320.
Niš Airport's former management recently said it was in the final stages of negotiations for Turkish Airlines to launch services from Istanbul, Ryanair from Athens and Wizz Air from Paris, however, none of these have materialised under the airport's new, state-imposed, leadership. The airport itself noted that the rising price of fuel has made airlines more reluctant to introduce new routes to the city. Constantine the Great Airport's low three euro tax for handling, landing and passenger services, which is credited for attracting the likes of Wizz and Ryanair, remains in force. The Serbian government has admitted that under an agreement with the French concession and construction company VINCI, passenger figures will be confined to one million for each airport in the country within a 230 kilometre radius of Belgrade until Nikola Tesla Airport reaches twelve million travellers per year. However, the government argues it is unlikely for any secondary airport to get to this figure before the country's busiest achieves its target.
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