Turkish sees strong Russian feed on new Tivat service

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Turkish Airlines inaugurated flights between Istanbul and Tivat late last week, making the coastal city its ninth destination in the former Yugoslavia. The airline will maintain three weekly seasonal summer flights between the two, however, the carrier is registering high demand for the route and will look to add frequencies. The service is seeing strong feed from the Russian market. Attending the flag carrier’s first flight to Tivat, Turkish Airlines’ CEO, Bilal Eksi, said, “As we begin operations to our second destination in Montenegro, a country we share historical ties with, we are connecting Tivat to 128 countries of the world as our 340th destination. As a centre of attraction with its wonderful location, history, rich cuisine and beauty of the Adriatic coast, we are happy to connect Tivat with the world with our wide flight network”. He added, “Three weekly flights probably won’t be enough so we will have to add more”. Turkish Airlines will compete directly against Air Montenegro on the route. The General Manager of operator Airports of Montenegro, Goran Janderoski, defended the decision to encourage the Turkish national carrier to commence operations, noting that without Air Montenegro being an IATA member it is unable to conclude codeshare agreements, cooperate with its counterparts or bring transfer passengers to the country. “This was the only way we could recoup some of the announced flights from Ukrainian carriers for this summer. During the first week of operations, Turkish Airlines has already sold 85% of its tickets to Tivat. The structure of passengers on this route is particularly interesting since the majority come from Russia”, Mr Jandreoski said. Tivat Airport is struggling to attract passengers this year with the loss of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarussian holidaymakers who previously made up the bulk of its summer traffic. During May, the airport handled 48.554 passengers, down 51% on the pre-pandemic 2019. Over the January - May period it welcomed 110.847 travellers through its doors, representing a decrease of 49.5% on 2019.