Ryanair set for new EX-YU expansion
Europe's busiest airline, Ryanair, is to continue expanding in the former Yugoslavia in the coming months, both independently and through its subsidiaries. With a handful of new routes already announced, more are set to follow, in particular to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The budget airline will operate a new service from Vienna to Banja Luka next year on behalf of its subsidiary Lauda and is also tipped to announce another new route within the coming days. “The service from Vienna won’t be seasonal but it won’t operate on a year-round basis either. Within the next seven to ten days we expect for an additional new route to be announced. At this point, I can’t unveil the destination in question, other than it being within the European Union”, the head of operator Airports of Republic of Srpska, Milan Račić, said. For its part, Ryanair noted, “We will continue developing our operations at Banja Luka and we look forward to opening additional services in the future and attributing to passenger growth”. The airline is also expected to finalise its agreement with Mostar Airport over launching services to the city but has not commented on the matter so far.
Ryanair has significantly grown its operations to Croatia this year, primarily through Zadar, and plans to continue expanding. The low cost airline handled some 550.000 passengers on its flights to and from the country this year. Out of the eight new routes launched to Zadar last summer season, all are expected to resume in 2020 with exception to Hamburg. Furthermore, Lauda will introduce services from Vienna to both Zadar and Dubrovnik. The General Manager of Dubrovnik Airport, Frano Luetić, said, “We are delighted with Ryanair’s arrival under the same conditions as all other carriers, despite it being a budget airline”. Ryanair commenced operations to Dubrovnik this year with flights from Dublin. The company itself noted, "Ryanair has held positive discussions with the Croatian Minister for Tourism regarding longer term traffic growth and route development at its existing Croatian airports as well as potential new airports".
In Serbia, Ryanair, will expand its operations to Niš Constantine the Great Airport this winter season with the introduction of flights from Malta in November, which will be followed up by a new service from Hahn in January. It will compete directly against Air Serbia on its new route from Germany. On the other hand, the carrier has scheduled flights from Stockholm Skavsta to Niš only until the end of the 2019/20 winter season, in late March, indicating the route may be discontinued.
Ryanair has become the third largest in terms of offered capacity in Montenegro behind only the national carrier and Air Serbia. The low cost airline has overtaken Turkish Airlines and plans to handle over 175.000 passengers on its flights to and from Podgorica this year, up from 150.000 in 2018. For next year, the airline has announced it will launch services from Dublin, making it its eighth route to the Montenegrin capital. As a result, Ryanair becomes the first airline to link Ireland and Montenegro with a scheduled air service.
In Slovenia, a market which was once served by Ryanair, the carrier is believed to have approached Ljubljana Airport over potential flights following the collapse of Adria Airways. The low cost carrier previously criticised the Slovenian government for selling Ljubljana Airport to Germany's Fraport, which it has accused of creating an airport monopoly throughout Europe. However, last year the airline began operations from Frankfurt's main airport which is operated by Fraport. Slovenia is currently the only European Union member state which is not served by Ryanair.
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