First "low-cost" airliners come to Serbia during this summer - German airliner "Germanwings" takes off Belgrade's airport to Koeln on September 6, 2006

German low-tariff airliner "Germanwings" will finally, on September 6, 2006, take off from Belgrade to Koeln, which will make it the first airliner of that type on Serbia's market.

That was confirmed by the manager for international public relations of this company, Andreas Engel, adding that, for the start, three flights a week will be organized from the capital of Serbia to Koeln. Later, probably more flights will be introduced.

- It is important for us to see the potential of the market and if the sales are good, as we expect, we will increase the number of flights to seven flights a week and we will introduce flights to other destinations, as well. We had the similar situations in Croatia where, following the flights to Zagreb and Koeln, we introduced flights to Berlin and Dubrovnik - Engel explains.

According to his words, the tickets to Koeln will cost 19 EUR. The first official presentation of "Germanwingsa" will take place in August 2006. Although they did not provide all necessary licenses issued by the Directorate for Civilian Air Transportation, this “low-cost” company expects that it will pass all administrative obstacles before the first schedulled flight.

Engel points out that "Germanwings" will fly from Belgrade by airplanes of type “airbus" A319” and “A320”, which are the only models that company has. The fleet of the company grew from 15 to 22 airplanes in 2005, whereas in 2006, it is expected that another 18 "A319" aircrafts will "join" the fleet. None of the planes is older than 4, since "Germanwings", as a daughter company of "Lufthansa", was founded in August 2002.

“Low-cost” companies have not appeared on the market of Serbia before, if we don't count short presence of certain company from Sweden. Irish "Rayanair" intended to establish line with Serbia in 2005, but it did not succeed.

According to the different explanations, the problem was that the opinion was that the arrival of low-cost companies would harm "JAT Airways”, so that "Rayanair" could not obtain necessary licenses, whereas the version of the story says that this company simply realized that Serbian market was not profitable for that model of air transportation.

According to unofficial information, Irish leading "low-cost" company irefreshed its interest in Serbia, so that it is expected that it will appear on the Serbian market in 2007.