Air Serbia boosts regional operations amid Adria demise

Air Serbia will increase operations to a number of cities within its regional network in response to Adria Airways’ ongoing service suspension. The airline has revised its planned winter timetable over the past few days, which begins on October 27, to include extra frequencies to Ljubljana, Tirana, Skopje, Bucharest, Banja Luka, Podgorica and Thessaloniki. Services from Belgrade to the Slovenian capital will operate twice per day, up from eleven weekly last winter, while flights to Tirana will run nine times per week, resulting in an additional three weekly rotations. The carrier’s operations to Skopje (eight weekly), Bucharest (daily), Banja Luka (three weekly), Podgorica (nineteen weekly) and Thessaloniki (five weekly) will see an extra weekly service compared to the 2018/19 season.

During the busy holiday period, between mid-December and mid-January, Air Serbia will further strengthen its regional operations with a total of ten weekly flights to be maintained to Tirana and eight weekly to Bucharest. The airline previously scheduled additional winter frequencies to Venice and Larnaca as well, while it will continue to run its newly launched year-round operations from Belgrade to Barcelona, Cairo, Helsinki, Kiev, Krasnodar, Madrid and Rijeka. It will keep the same summer frequencies for most of the new routes over the winter as well. This coming season, Air Serbia will have an additional Airbus A319 aircraft at its disposal, enabling it to also maintain services from Niš Airport to eleven cities, among which is Ljubljana.

The Serbian carrier previously said it would be adding capacity onto routes formerly operated by Adria Airways. The airline has extended the sale of special fares for its Slovenian customers to a select number of destinations previously served by the Slovenian carrier. In a statement, the company said, “Air Serbia has enabled the Slovenian airline’s passengers to fly to their destinations of choice at rates lower than average for this time of year. Passengers who are at risk of having their travel plans partly or completely disrupted by the flight suspension, will be able to use Air Serbia’s network and fly to cities in the neighbouring region and Europe. Ticket prices for these flights, depending on the destination, will start from 74 euros for a return trip via Belgrade. Passengers can also opt for one-way tickets, at half the rate of a return ticket”. Destinations from Ljubljana included in the promotion are Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Podgorica, Tirana, Vienna, Zurich, Prague, Copenhagen, Brussels, Paris and Frankfurt. Air Serbia has increased capacity on its evening service between Belgrade and Ljubljana with immediate effect, with the airline deploying a mix of Boeing 737-300 and Airbus A319 aircraft instead of the usual ATR72 turboprop.

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