Bosnia's Tuzla Opens Flight Link to Dubai

The service to Dubai on Air Arabia will operate twice a week until the end of October but may be extended if the flights prove popular.

The director of Tuzla Airport, Enver Jukanovic, said a significant number of Bosnians from Tuzla Canton were employees of American agencies providing services for the US Army in Iraq, United Arab Emirates or Afghanistan, "so we found it necessary to have a direct flight to Dubai twice a week and maybe even more often”.

With the price of flight ranging from $659 to $999, Jukanovic hopes that Tuzla Airport can handle up to 10,000 passengers per year to Dubai, as Tuzla is now, after Belgrade, the only other former Yugoslav city to offer flights to Dubai. “I see this as new start for us,” Jukanovic told Balkan Insight.

Tuzla Airport has stuggled to attract business

Tuzla Airport has struggled to attract airlines and passengers since it opened its doors to commercial use in 1998.

The international airport in the northeastern Bosnian town has temporarily closed in some winters, citing the high cost of winter runway maintenance.  

At the same time, the government of Bosnia’s Bosniak-Croat dominated entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, recently announced a new investment of 220,000 euros in the purchase of machinery to improve the handling of aircraft once they arrive at the airport.

The Prime Minister of the Tuzla Canton, Sead Causevic, recently said there were plans to turn Tuzla into a cargo airport. Investors from the United Arab Emirates were interested in the project, while Turkish Airlines has also expressed some interest in turning Tuzla into a cargo hub, he said.