New flights from Sarajevo

The first passengers yesterday arrived from Cologne/Bonn to Sarajevo on the low cost airline Germanwings with many passengers able to buy tickets for the first flight for only 19 Euros making it currently the first scheduled low cost airline to operate to the Bosnian capital. Flights from Cologne to Sarajevo will operate twice a week – Wednesday and Saturday. Officials from the airline said one way tickets will average the price of 70 Euros (including taxes) while one tenth of the tickets will be sold at the lowest price of only 19 Euros. All tickets can be purchased via the Internet however officials from the airline state that since the Internet is in its development stages in Bosnia and Herzegovina tickets will also be able to be purchased at the airport.

From October the airline plans to introduce flights from Stuttgart, Germany to Sarajevo while the line Sarajevo – Berlin will open in March 2009. The Germanwings jet was yesterday welcomed by a water cannon solute at Sarajevo organised by Sarajevo Airport’s firemen. The first flight from Cologne to Sarajevo was sold out.

Germanwings becomes the 11th scheduled operator to Sarajevo although this will decrease to 10 once British Airways withdraws from the Bosnian market in October. In the Ex-Yugoslav nations Germanwings currently operates flights to Duborvnik, Osijek, Pula, Split, Zadar and Zagreb in Croatia and Priština in Kosovo/Serbia and Belgrade in Serbia.