Wizz Air announces Sarajevo base with nine routes

Sarajevo isn’t a new airport for Wizz Air: it has served it from Budapest since 2017 following the end of Malev. It will now be a base with nine routes.

Wizz Air has announced a new base at Sarajevo – its second in Bosnia and Herzegovina after Tuzla.

It’ll start on 20 May and will initially have nine routes, all twice- or three-weekly, for a total of 21-weekly.

The routes focus on Bosnian VFR, especially those to Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia.

Read more: Sarajevo is very underserved, with over half of its traffic flying indirectly in 2019.

None of Wizz Air’s new routes will have direct competition, and only two will have indirect competition from Sarajevo.  Most will come from itself at Tuzla, raising the question of whether any consolidation will happen.

In 2019, round-trip point-to-point demand – before stimulation in most cases – was approximately as follows, based on booking data from OAG Traffic Analyser:

• London: 19,000

• Amsterdam: 16,000

• Munich: 15,000
• Copenhagen: 14,000

• Paris: 14,000
• Brussels: 12,000
• Gothenburg: 7,000
• Düsseldorf and Cologne: 9,000 (indirect only)
• Basel: 3,000 (rising to over 30,000 with Zurich, ~92km away, is included; Zurich ended in 2019)

The above figures exclude leakage to Tuzla (~110km away) and demand that goes by coach. Coach demand was always big business from the country.

Wizz Air schedule fully allocated for one aircraft

Wizz Air’s new Sarajevo base will initially have one aircraft which will operate six sectors each day from 0610. It’s fully allocated.

Multiple markets have been served in the past decade:

• Amsterdam by BH Airlines until 2012
• Charleroi by TUI Belgium in 2017
• Copenhagen by BH Airlines, Norwegian, and SAS. Two carriers were on it in most years and it ended in 2019
• Gothenburg by BH Airlines until 2011 and then Norwegian in 2019
• Luton by FlyBosnia in 2019 and 2020
• Zurich by BH Airlines until 2013 and then Swiss between 2015 and 2019

Belgium, France, and the UK will once again be connected with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Wizz Air previously served Luton from Tuzla.  It ended in 2017 and had an estimated SLF of 74%, based on 20,159 passengers and 27,360 seats.    

The traffic shows how well markets can be stimulated, with London demand from Sarajevo and Tuzla exceeding 38,000 in 2017 – almost double the year before.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that SLF, fares, and sector revenue will always be sufficient, so the need for corrective measures.