January 12 (SeeNews) - German-based airberlin said on Wednesday it plans to open a route to Montenegro in May, aiming to take advantage of the growth potential of Southeast Europe.
The new route will connect Tivat, on Montenegro's southwestern Adriatic coast, with Nuremberg and will be available on Wednesdays as of May 18, airberlin senior manager public relations Sabine Teller told SeeNews in an emailed statement.
From Nuremberg, the carrier offers onward connections to Berlin, Duesseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover and Vienna.
In comparison with some mature Western European countries, the emerging markets in Southeast Europe (SEE) show well above the average growth rates, Teller said.
"Economic development in this region offers substantial potential for solid growth in air traffic in the future and that is why airberlin is interested in expanding its SEE product portfolio."
Across SEE, the airberlin group, comprising airberlin PLC, Austrian low-cost carrier NIKI, Swiss Belair and Duesseldorf-based airline LTU, offers flights to Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Kosovo.
Airberlin notched up several successful route introductions in SEE in 2010.
Last year, the group posted its biggest and fastest capacity rise in the SEE region in Romania. Just seven months after entering the Romanian market in February 2010 with a daily Vienna-Bucharest service, the airline ramped up the flight frequency to three per day.
In 2010, airberlin also entered the Bulgarian market with a once-a-day Sofia-Vienna service. In October, the number of daily flights was increased to two, Teller said.
Airberlin (www.airberlin.com), which operates as a hybrid carrier, is the second largest German airline and the sixth largest in Europe. It operated a fleet of 169 aircraft as of the end of September 2010.
In 2010, a total of 33,593,010 passengers traveled on airberlin's flight route network, an increase of 3.8% over the previous year.