Amazing news! The more flights to Iran, the better.

It's nice to see more and more airlines out of arrivals/departures waves(rush hour)

What happened with flights to Damascus?

No idea but they’ve since launched Moscow

Another interesting destination for BEG. Would be nice to eventually get flights to Kish island which is a relatively popular destination.

A friend of mine flew on Pegasus to IKA the other day and she told me that the flight back to BEG was basically filled with Turks and Iranians.

Seems like other airlines are also profiting from visa liberalization.

Gde su oni pametnjakovici koji su tvrdili da nema mogucnosti za saobracaj sa Iranom. Vidite sta jedna zena u cadoru moze da ucini.

It seems there will be a big inflow of Iranian nationals to Serbia. Will the infrastructure be able to manage that?

Are you kidding?

Not at all. These people have certain expectations in terms of food, accommodation, etc. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for the tourism industry in Serbia. How to get more money out of them?

Well the structure of tourists is similar to the Turkish one so I think it should be ok.

I saw a group of Iranian tourists in front of the Nikola Tesla museum and they were mostly younger people in their 30s.

p.s. Qeshm resumes BEG from tomorrow.

WOW! Nice. Congratulations to BEG! I remember reading on here that IR also wanted to fly from Shiraz and I think Esfahan.

Interesting how they also fly to Yerevan.

Iran Air is rather expensive. In August return flight is €500 but on some days they are sold out.

Arkia is also adding a fourth flight between TLV and BEG that operates from 02.07 to 27.08. It arrives to BEG at 21.45.

Mahan Air will add a third flight on Thursdays. They also changed their times so now they arrive at 07.20 and 07.50.

Of course they have expectations but they need to know where they are arriving. It is unrealistic to stop selling pizza prosciutto due to the fact that Iranians are in Belgrade.

On the same way they need to be informed about the culture they are visiting.

I do not see what kind of special accommodation they might need.

As Anon ar 12:21 mentioned there are so many Turks in Belgrade (many more than Iranians) and there would have been even more if TK could had flown widebody to BEG. No complaints.

Maybe we should stop looking at Iranians as the people from another planet

Amazing!
Middle East discovered Belgrade!

On beg.aero it is written that the flights should start tomorrow.

I am not sure about it :-)

They probably still didn't get the permit from the Directorate. That said, these Shiraz flights are a nice compensation.

Seems like QR won't be increasing BEG right now which is a shame.

Nebojsa I'm looking how to make more money out of them. Do they want more Iranian restaurants? What about Persi speakers in hotels and tour guides? There can be many things to invest into to bring additional tourists and make them happy. This does not mean that people of Serbia should stop eating pork :) But as the numbers are growing the infrastructure needs to adapt as well!

Let's hope Wizz Air keeps their LCA flights this winter, there is nothing in the system.

Our company trades with Iran so I can tell you that they love anything and everything that's European. This especially applies to products they buy.

Most Iranians are hedonists so make sure you provide them with a comfortable and civilized environment. They are not one of those people who travel abroad to eat Persian cuisine so don't worry about that. They are general liberal and open-minded. Conservative Iranians usually don't travel to Europe.

One thing you should be extremely careful about is politeness. They are generally extremely polite, cultured and very patriotic.
There are two insults Iranians will not forgive you for. The first is to compare them to a dog and the other is to say that they are Arabs.

If you are dealing with their tourists you can always point out that Iran sent its first ambassador to Belgrade back in 1921 while the first Oriental language at the Philology Faculty was not Turkish, Arabic or Chinese but Persian (1926).
Also, during SFRJ, Iran was the country's biggest trade partner in Asia.

Hope this helped. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

It is fully understandable and legitimate. It is ok to open Iranian restaurant in Belgrade, but don't you think they have enough Iranian food in Iran? :-) Maybe they want to taste Serbian cevapcici or Karadjordjeva made of chicken meat?

Persi speakers in Belgrade is always a nice touch but you can't teach someone that language in few days...It is long term investment.

What I meant in my previous post was that you can't make them special praying room looking at east or make Serbian women wear headscarf in the centre of Belgrade.

They need to know where they are.

Da li si normalan previse je svinjetine u inace jelima od govedjeg mesa. Isto burek sa svinjskom mascu. Mislis da ih Kijevski odrezak koji im ti preporucujes tako privlaci
kada se na istom rostilju
priprema i gomila krmetine?
Oni vode racuna o svojoj ishrani i dobro znaju sta je krmetina. Vi kao da ne znate da je internet tu cetvrt veka i da ljudi pisu o svojim iskustvima sa putovanja.

Izgleda da pisu pozitivno cim ih sve vise I vise dolazi.

This is crazy! This summer there are going to be 8 weekly flights and 3 will be on a widebody!

where else should they go without a visa?

Ti ako imas problem sa svinjskim mesom ovo nije mesto da ga resis.

Sama cinjenica da povecavaju broj letova za Beograd govori u prilog cinjenici da ni njima ni Turcima ne smetaju sve te kvazi cinjenice navedene u prethodnom postu.

Anon 01.55

Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, India, Oman ... or are you implying they are only coming to Serbia because they don't need a visa?

Does it mean it departs Shiraz at like 02.00! :O

It's okay to offer variety and services so that everyone can enjoy what they like but adapting LOCAL culture to visitors is a big NO.

If that is one of their requirements they should not come here, we are not interested in changing how we live.

Don't underestimate the fact that some people coming from Muslim and/or strict cultures will indeed want to try pork, or drink alcohol, and behave in such a way that they do not typically at home.

I am astonished at the interest from Iran (and a few other countries) to Serbia. From very little interest a few months ago to four different airlines, with what, 7-10 weekly flights(?). Is it just because visas are not required? If so is there similar interest in neighbouring countries where visas are not needed?

Koje druge zemlje osim BiH kada im EU sve limitira? Njima u BiH je glavni saobracaj sa Zalivom.

Great for the airport!

Jel ima ovakav interes za BiH, neznam? A druge zemlje gde pretpostavljam ne treba vize su; ALB i MAK, neznam dali ima još neke zemlje.

@Nemjee
Thanks for a great comment!

Obviously huge interest!

And they fly to the airport which is open for take off/ landing 24/7

I remember when I was in Armenia, on lake Sevan, there was a group of tourists from Iran so wasted that 3 of them slept in the middle of the day... So, iranians mindful of alcohol, food etc, maybe yes, but not middle class in big cities....

Georgia, like Serbia, suspended the visa regime with Iran and they immediately saw a 20% increase in tourist numbers.

Iran Air launched TBS at about the same time as BEG.

Another country without the visa regime is Turkey which was last year visited by 2.5 million Iranians.

Russia seems to be quite popular as in 2016 it was visited by 67.000 Iranians while last year the number grew to 100.000.

In conclusion, Iranians seem to be a nation that travels a lot and many nations are trying to get them to visit.

In the period March-August 2017 a total of 3.7 million Iranians traveled abroad .

Greece had a major campaign some time ago and Mahan Air flies their A346 into ATH every summer in addition to Aegean's daily flight.

As for Serbia, in the first three months of 2018 there were 3.388 Iranian tourists but in March alone there were 2.098.

My guess is that this year there are going to be between 30.000 and 40.000 of them.

Maybe they were Armenian Iranians? They are Christian so they can drink.

Maybe they were not Iranians, perhaps only from Iran?

Can an MD-82/3 even make it from Shiraz to Belgrade? I think the flight would be around 04.30.

They only have 2 A320s so they probably need it to be like this because of scheduling.

Ex-YU just a small correction, according to beg.aero the flight arrives at 04.30 and leaves at 05.30 :)

About TLV, there was an flight today between TLV and BEG by SmartWings, operated with Boeing 737 MAX.

Any info about that?

That flight was operated on behalf of Israir. They are experiencing issues with their fleet so they had to lease additional capacity. That MAX is not uncommon in BEG, they seem to dispatch it quite regularly.

Thanks for the detailed reply.
Had no idea Iranians travel so much. Just wait until sanctions and visas (to most places) are all removed.
In a few years there could be 100,000 Iranians visiting Serbia on a regular basis. Great for the economy.

Indeed. I think your projection is not unrealistic especially since more and more airlines keep on adding flights.

IR said they see potential from other Iranian cities so there might be some more surprises.

How many of Iranians arriving in Belgrade are actually returning to Iran? Is this going to cost us visa-free regime with Schenges countries? Or nobody cares?

So far all of them are returning. Iranians who are requesting asylum are not that many and they are arriving with the rest of immigrants via land routes.

By the way, there are far more Albanians with Serbian passport who are being deported back to Serbia than there are Iranians who are asking for asylum here.

So far many of them enter Bosnian and Herzegovina illegal!

https://www.klix.ba/vijesti/bih/mektic-zbog-srbije-imamo-ozbiljan-problem-s-migrantima-iz-irana/180531040

This smalls bad....

Malo stiva o posljedicama istih letova u BiH
https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/hrvatska/u-bih-na-izmaku-snaga-sve-vise-migranata-dolazi-a-sve-manje-iz-zemalja-u-kojima-je-rat-srbi-su-im-ukinuli-vize-mi-tu-ne-mozemo-nista/7423824/