The 2018 summer season begins on Sunday March 25, with Air Serbia set to make several changes to its network as it continues to implement wide-ranging restructuring in an attempt to boost its key performance indicators. The Serbian carrier will make frequency cuts to several destinations this summer, primarily those in Germany, from which it can no longer provide onward connections with its former major codeshare partner Air Berlin. As a result, the airline will operate one weekly flight less to Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart. Furthermore, the carrier will discontinue its seasonal summer service to Ohrid, while flights to Abu Dhabi will not resume following their suspension at the start of the 2017/18 winter season last October. Regional operations to Sofia and Skopje will be reduced by one weekly flight. Starting May 19, the airline will also amend its Prague operations from ten weekly on the seventy-seat ATR72 turboprop to daily services, with five flights to be maintained by the 144-seat Airbus A319 aircraft, thus providing more overall capacity on the route compared to last year. It comes in response to Hainan Airlines which has been running flights between the two cities with its wide-body Airbus A330-300 jet since last September.
On the other hand, Air Serbia will add an additional weekly service to Athens for a total of fifteen per week, with three flights per day to run each Thursday. Similarly, an additional flight will be added on the airline's Milan and St Petersburg service for a total of eight and four per week respectively. The Serbian carrier will respond to Swiss International Air Lines' growth on the market by introducing an additional three weekly departures to Zurich for a total of seventeen per week. The airline will also strengthen its flagship service to New York by adding a sixth weekly flight during the peak summer months. This year will also mark the first full summer the airline will operate services with its retrofitted narrow-body Airbus fleet, which has resulted in added capacity.
Air Serbia will maintain a significant number of charter flights this summer which will be operated by its dedicated leisure brand Aviolet, as well as one Airbus aircraft from its mainline fleet. Please note that the changes listed below are preliminary and based on current availability in the GDS (Global Distribution System). Air Serbia is prone to making additional changes mid-way through the season. The table below displays the peak weekly frequency on each route during the course of the summer season. Increases in frequencies to a number of destinations do not come into effect until mid-June. Seasonal flights to Split, Dubrovnik, Malta and St Petersburg will run until the end of the summer season, while services to Pula will operate until mid-September. EX-YU Aviation News will also bring you summer season changes for Croatia Airlines and Adria Airways during the course of the month. Meanwhile, you can review modifications Montenegro Airlines will be making to its network this summer here.
| Destination | Frequency S2017 | Frequency S2018 | Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abu Dhabi | 7 | 0 | ▼ 7 | - |
| Amsterdam | 10 | 10 | - | - |
| Athens | 14 | 15 | ▲ 1 | - |
| Banja Luka | 5 | 5 | - | - |
| Beirut | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Berlin | 8 | 7 | ▼ 1 | - |
| Brussels | 4 | 4 | - | - |
| Bucharest | 8 | 8 | - | - |
| Copenhagen | 6 | 6 | - | - |
| Dubrovnik | 6 | 6 | - | resumes MAY14 |
| Dusseldorf | 7 | 6 | ▼ 1 | - |
| Frankfurt | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Hamburg | 4 | 3 | ▼ 1 | - |
| Larnaca | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Ljubljana | 12 | 12 | - | - |
| London Heathrow | 9 | 9 | - | - |
| Malta | 3 | 3 | - | - |
| Milan | 7 | 8 | ▲ 1 | - |
| Moscow | 10 | 10 | - | - |
| New York | 5 | 6 | ▲ 1 | - |
| Ohrid | 4 | 0 | ▼ 4 | - |
| Paris | 13 | 13 | - | - |
| Podgorica | 21 | 21 | - | - |
| Pula | 4 | 4 | - | resumes JUN11 |
| Prague | 10 | 7 | ▼ 3 | - |
| Rome | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Sarajevo | 7 | 7 | - | - |
| Sofia | 7 | 6 | ▼ 1 | - |
| Split | 6 | 6 | - | resumes MAY07 |
| Skopje | 14 | 13 | ▼ 1 | - |
| Stockholm | 6 | 6 | - | - |
| St Petersburg | 3 | 4 | ▲ 1 | - |
| Stuttgart | 7 | 6 | ▼ 1 | - |
| Tel Aviv | 5 | 5 | - | - |
| Tirana | 9 | 9 | - | - |
| Tivat | 21 | 21 | - | - |
| Thessaloniki | 14 | 14 | - | - |
| Venice | 4 | 4 | - | - |
| Vienna | 14 | 14 | - | - |
| Zagreb | 10 | 10 | - | - |
| Zurich | 14 | 17 | ▲ 3 | - |
Comments
Flight departed on time from SVO at 11:50 sharp. LF was about 98%. It is really surprising that Moscow is performing this well, because the BEG-SVO flight some days before was completely full as well.
Since i bought my ticket before the implemented changes, i was give a sandwich and a bottle of water without the additional charge. The sandwich was sealed in an air bag, fresh and very tasty, something you would expect to buy in good bakeries. Some people did not know about the additional charge because they bought tickets through other web sites that dont point this out but just provide you with the cheapest ticket, so there was a little confusion. Also a big issue is that they did not accept card payments yet (they said it will be implemented soon).
Passenger composition - there were a lot of transfers from different nationalities, many Serbians and Russians.
Flight was overall pleasant, friendly and professional crew. However the new slim seats are not that comfortable and a flight that lasts longer than two and a half hours would be a problem, at least for me
That said, I think it's great they are adding a morning departure to Athens. It will be good both for those coming in from Moscow and New York but also for locals.
Thursday
JU 510 07.30-10.00
JU 511 10.45-11.25
Ever since Aegean changed their schedule, BEG was left with a very awkward timetable to Athens.
Cyprus seems to be rather hot this summer as far as package holidays go. Unfortunately for JU, most agencies have concluded deals with Wizz Air. One is even offering a week in Agia Napa (Saturday to Saturday) for as little as €300.
I wouldn't be surprised if Wizz Air ends up adding a third flight during the busy summer period. LCA is full all the time, this Sunday there were around 155 passengers.
JU needs a morning flight to LCA similar to the ones to TLV and ATH.
Arkia and Israir are much better.
They just added a departure to the airport at 01.15 while until now the last one was at 23.30 meaning you had to sit at the airport for four hours.
Still, even with these changes the schedule is unattractive for locals when there is Wizz Air that departs to LCA at noon from Belgrade (from the end of this month).
That's why JU needs a morning departure out of Belgrade. It could get feed from both SVO and JFK and it would be really attractive for locals as well.
I think it will stay seasonal.
In my book that is gloom and doom!
my2cents
If they are not going for transfer pax, they can't compete with LCCs. If they do go fir transfer pax, they need to build the network.
my2cents
3xATR from 1991 and 2xB737 from 1988...and LHR slots... anything else?
These flights are terribly scheduled and should be moved to middle of the day to allow for people traveling to/from other Italian cities to use it.
again, anybody mentioned Nis? :)
Austrian will be hit but still has transfers. Yields might be worse but still they could keep it and maybe downsize.
JU would see most of direct passengers go to Wizz, there is no more codeshare with Austrian. Keeping one daily in that scenario is not bad.
Completely different markets. Croatia is 60% the size of Serbia but has much greater purchasing power, as big diaspora as Serbis and it is effectively tourist powerhouse. Serbia on the other hand is struggling economy, with national airline which tried to be a major transfer player but failed. On the bright side, tourism is also on the rise in Belgrade and elsewhere in the country so there is room for optimism.
You both obviously haven't understand me. I wasn't comparing JU and OU, but the impression their routemaps give. Routemaps are always part of the articles with topic as today is. And today it's about summer timetable, or seasonal routes. But if you feel offended by the fact that summer season routemap of OU is growing, and JU one reducing, or at least stagnating, I do apologize
I am the second post. Sorry, I misunderstood. Actually you are right but I am trying not to sound negative about JU too much. Even though I am worried where the project ended.
Only 2 x B733 have so far been retired. YU-ANJ was retired mid January, while YU-ANI was retired begining of February. The other 2 is expected by the end of the summer, if I’m not mistaken. By then, JU should be taking 2 x A320 neo.
When JU began, the schedule was supposed to be:
BEG 2355 CAI 0350 - 2 - 4 - 6 A319
CAI 0435 BEG 0640 - - 3 - 5 - 7 A319
All planned routes opened except for CAI.
Im surprised CDG dropped considering its their 2nd most popular route by pax numbers.
If they could somehow join OneWorld or SkyTeam it would be helpful. There are certainly some gaps that opened with the demise of Air Berlin and never ending saga with Alitalia.
With the cuts i imagine that there would be some capacity to deploy in order to improve JFK route since it won't be cut? Although that could be throwing 'good money after bad'
Fact is, JU has an A330 parked in BEG during the winter most of the week and could send it somewhere. JU apprently attained 4 slots in YYZ. Starting in the winter when JFK is reduced (3 pw) would be a good way to use the aircraft (2 pw). A second A330 could join in April to boost both JFK (6 pw) and YYZ (4 pw). Im sure the A330 would be great for a charter during the season as Jat had the DC10 do charters when then had them. Its common to see 2 ac depart one after the other on charter flights (AYT for example).
judge. While I dont think JFK is making money, I dont think it is losing as much money as before.
Why Skyteam? All that JU seems to be doing is flying people to Paris and Amsterdam for low revenue and filling their planes.
Don't you think the second plane would make even more trouble for finances? JFK and YYZ are both very well served from all over Europe, demand from/to Belgrade is very seasonal and business passengers are scarce - where would profit come from? Charters with A330 - really do not get why they are not using it. I also do not get why JU does not employ A330 on some of busiest profitable routes. We used to have DC10 flying to Zurich even in 2000.
Remember they even used to operate this with stop in Damascus.
So funny. I think we all know where that message is coming from, every time. Not the "concerned taxpayer".
Tako nekako bi ja okarakterizirao dogadjaje vezane uz AS.
Ethiad je na koljenima. Na njega se AS vise ne moze osloniti.
AS je ostala sama na vjetrometini.
2 su nacina kako se izvuci iz nezavidna polozaja.
So you are saying that there is not much to sell left as planes are to retire/go to scrap and all left is LHR slots?
Sala mala.
Ono sto bi ja napravio, napominjem kako ne znam kakav je ugovor izmedju AS i Ethiada, je otkazao suradnju i pronasao mjesto u nekoj od aliansi.
Ukinuo JFK i ta sredstva preusmjerio na razvoj mreze prema istoku i jugu.
Zapravo, to je u sustini ono sto je potrebno :)