New fuel efficient aircraft and emerging markets are prompting more carriers to serve Eastern Europe directly from North America. That’s a tremendous asset to travelers looking for beautiful and affordable vacations.
Earlier this week, American Airlines announced new summer seasonal service to Dubrovnik, Croatia, one of my favorite cities in Europe. While the route will only run between June 7 and September 27, 2019, it represents a wonderful boost for this city of 45,000 people.
Over the last couple years we have seen increased service to several cities in Eastern Europe. There are now many ways to reach Eastern Europe from North America, including:
- Aeroflot
- Los Angeles/New York/Washington/Miami/Toronto to Moscow
- Air Canada / Rouge
- Montreal/Toronto to Athens (seasonal)
- Montreal/Toronto to Bucharest (seasonal)
- Toronto to Budapest (seasonal)
- Toronto to Zagreb (seasonal)
- Air Serbia
- New York to Belgrade
- American Airlines
- Chicago/Philadelphia to Athens (seasonal)
- Philadelphia to Budapest (seasonal)
- Philadelphia to Dubrovnik (seasonal)
- Delta Air Lines
- New York to Athens (seasonal)
- Emirates
- Newark to Athens
- LOT Polish
- Chicago/Los Angeles/New York to Warsaw
- Chicago/New York to Budapest
- Ukraine Airlines
- New York to Kiev
- United Airlines
- Newark to Athens (seasonal)
- Uzbekistan Airways
- New York to Riga
Defining “Eastern Europe” can be contentious. I know I could include Turkish Airlines and Azerbaijan Airlines in the list, but I’m not. I’m also not including Prague since it is further west than Vienna and I would never classify Vienna as Eastern Europe. Arguably, Budapest might better be classified as Central Europe also.
A History of Mixed Success + A New Generation of Aircraft
Let’s not forget, however, that it is not as if carriers have never tried service to Eastern Europe before. Over a decade ago, Delta launched flights to Budapest, Bucharest, and even Kiev. The routes did not last. Olympic Airways could not sustain its service between New York and Athens, though the problem may have been less that route and instead deeper structural issues with that ill-fated former flag carrier of Greece. More generally, many of these flights are purely leisure and can only be supported during the summer months.
But what’s different now is a new generation of fuel efficient aircraft, like the Boeing 787, that make this travel more economical and therefore more feasible than in the past. New A321XLR may make even more sense and allow for year-around travel that would otherwise be untenable.
CONCLUSION
I expect even more service to cities in Eastern Europe in the months and years ahead. Let’s stop and reflect for one moment that we are in another golden era of aviation. True, seat pitch is tight and airlines are nickel and diming us like never before, but I cannot recall an era of more international choice at cheaper prices than now. It’s a great time to fly to Eastern Europe. It’s simply a great time to fly.
Dubrovnik only has 45,000 people – there are 4 million in all of Croatia
Tim, thank you. You are of course correct and I’ve corrected that.
It’s Air Canada Rouge not Rogue.
They sure seem rogue sometimes, though.
Hi Matthew,
FYI, Greece is not part of eastern Europe as it was never part of the communist block (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Europe).
As I mentioned in the post, defining “Eastern Europe” is difficult, but for Greece I am just basing it off geography. Your point is fare and another way to define Eastern Europe is certainly ex-Communist Warsaw Bloc countries.
That might me right but so called “communist countries” (which they never were in fact. They were socialist but for westerner i guess its no difference) are actually in Central Europe. Eastern Europe could be part of Baltics Ukraine or Finnlad.
LOT flies JFK-BUD, AA flies PHL-PRG, JU flies JFK-BEG
I’m leaving out Prague, but thanks for the other two.
This is great for travellers who can now reach these destinations with a one-stop connection. I bet US airlines are charging a premium for these seasonal routes or else they’d be suspended very fast. Now one can hope that fuel prices don’t rise into unsustainable heights…
i think once in a while LOT also flies nonstop from US to Krakow. Things like the flights to Kiev and Belgrade are more for ethnic traffic, as well as the LOT flights to Warsaw.
The Aeroflot ones are definitely the money laundering express.
@Henry LAX
I think Aeroflot must be making good moolah on these routes being the only player offering non-stops. It is the definition of monopoly – Remember no US Airline flies to Russia yet there’re many people flying between the 2 countries meaning most fly via european hubs. Aeroflot can afford to charge a premium here. I don’t see these routes as being money laundering tunnels at all.
Aeroflot offers no service to Toronto. They tried it twice. Initially the flight was canceled in 2009, then briefly resumed and canceled again in 2014.
Honestly I don’t see such an increase in service to Central/Eastern Europe.
Aeroflot – yep, definitely they show strong capacity increase, but until a couple of years ago Moscow was served by Delta (daily from JFK and daily from ATL), by United (daily from Dulles), by American (from Chicago, can’t remember frequencies, 4 or 5 weekly), by Transaero (up to 20 directs US-Russia flights weekly by high density 777, 77W and 747). So basically we see capacity redistribution. It’s an increase for Aeroflot, but not for the market.
Kiev – no increase at all. Aerosvit used to serve Kiev and Toronto. Then Delta served Kiev from JFK up to 5 weekly flights. Overall I would say there is less capacity between Ukraine and the US than it used to be.
Serbia – yep, increase, a highly politically motivated flight that I would surprise survive in the midterm (even though it provides great connections to lots of places in Balkans).
I mean I would love to see that growth, but it’s just not here if you compare market capacity now and in 2010, 2012. Honestly I’m personally wondering how Greece could be that underserved from the US.
* Prague is definitely Eastern Europe. It’s not about geography, it’s about the past. Czechoslovakia used to be a Soviet block country, meaning East. Austria has always been West (even though geographically it’s quite the opposite).
Yes Prague is a bit to the west of Vienna but most would consider Prague Eastern Europe (although Central Europe is probably the most accurate description for both Prague and Vienna). By your logic Szczecin is not Eastern Europe but Krakow and Warsaw are.
And Zagreb (which you do consider Eastern Europe, apparently) is farther west than Vienna!
Budapest got so many new routes! Flew LOT on the JFK-BUD route this summer. I wonder why they fly out of JFK and not EWR where they could pick up on a lot of UA connecting traffic… If you look at the case of Budapest, with 4 new North American routes added recently, it shows how tourism is booming in Central Europe
Back in high school in the late 90s I lived in WAW, and remember many flights on at DL L-1011 nonstop to JFK.
I also remember LO codesharing with AA, and DL’s AMS-WAW flight. 1998 in Warsaw, man… What a crazy time!
Since July LOT has the two Dreamliner flights weekly from ORD to KRK as mentioned. I believe it’s Sunday and Thursday with the returns being Monday and Friday. That is definitely something I want try however my problem is that I need to get an additional flight from Central Virginia to ORD. For now I just go to IAD and fly from there to wherever I can get a connection to KRK. Luckily Krakow has become a popular place so there are quite a few options.
@Matthew
Can you explain the competitive advantage for this? Aside from brand or frequent flyer program loyalty, given that there isn’t likely a huge amount of origin-destination traffic?
Is AA somehow able to command a price premium over simply connecting elsewhere in Europe? A one stop flight from the US to DBV seems the same to me no matter whether I’m stopping in PHL or at a European hub first.
Admittedly… the only Oneworld service to DBV I can find is out of LGW, so I suppose there’s not even one-stop service on that alliance right now. Aside from that, the only other thing I can think of is that PHL is better connected to the rest of the US than a hub in Europe.
LOT also flies nonstop from ORD to Krakow, Poland.
If the airlines are charging a hefty premium for direct flights to eastern Europe from the U.S., then it doesn’t do us price-conscious travelers any good.
@asarious
In my experience going to DBV a few years ago, a lot of the intra-Europe flights aren’t timed well for passengers connecting from intercontinental flights as they have historically been more targeted towards the European tourist market than anything else. Maybe that has changed as more Americans have discovered the Dalmatian coast and Montenegro. Also, for Americans who live in cities that don’t have flights to the major European hubs, they are far more likely to have non-stop service to PHL (especially if they live on the East Coast), so the PHL-DBV flight means a one connection flight instead of a two connection flight.