FlyBosnia mulls Sarajevo base closure
FlyBosnia is considering closing its base in Sarajevo and moving its operations to Tuzla and Mostar instead. It comes after it emerged the airline has accumulated over half a million euros worth of debt to Bosnia and Herzegovina's busiest airport. The airline, which established scheduled flights to the Middle East this summer and to London Luton in September, told the "Klix" portal, "Our company and staff are considering the possibility of shifting our operations to Tuzla and Mostar. In such a case, we would fly to Rome (due to commence in November) from Mostar, while London and other EU destinations would be maintained from Tuzla, from which we would provide bus transfers to Sarajevo". Wizz Air, which boasts a base in Tuzla, previously flew from the city to London Luton but discontinued the flights due to insufficient demand.
For the upcoming 2019/2020 winter season, which begins later this month, the airline has so far only scheduled and put on sale two weekly flights from Sarajevo to London, down from the current three per week. With the airline's Middle East summer flights winding down, it is currently utilising only one out of the two Airbus A319 aircraft at its disposal. Only one jet will be used over the winter months. "Fresh challenges are ahead with the launch of our London flights and soon Rome. We expect to take delivery of a further two A319s in April 2020, for which leasing contracts have already been signed. As a result, FlyBosnia will have a fleet of four aircraft", the company said.
Since launching scheduled flights in June, FlyBosnia has handled over 30.000 passengers. The majority, 12.415, were carried in August, while 3.351 passengers flew with the airline last month. "FlyBosnia is a young carrier from Bosnia and Herzegovina, which took up the risk to develop airline traffic both in the country and Sarajevo as our home base. We are well aware that we have no concessions, grants nor any other type of subsidies from either the canton, federal or state governments. This is in contrast to other regional airlines where the state invests into their carriers in order to cover their losses as they are of national importance", the company noted. FlyBosnia has requested Sarajevo Airport to waive all taxes, as well as service fees for a period of ten years. The start-up airline was set up by Saudi Arabia's Al Shiddi Group and is 100% privately owned.
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