Flights between Serbia and Russia will run up to 34 times per week this winter season, with three airlines to maintain operations from four Russian airports. Aeroflot will continue to run three daily flights, for a total of 21 weekly, between Moscow and the Serbian capital, while Red Wings Airlines has scheduled three weekly services between the two cities throughout the winter. On the other hand, Air Serbia will run daily flights to Moscow, three weekly to Krasnodar and two weekly services to St Petersburg, although the latter will operate only between December 28 and January 11. Aeroflot and Air Serbia have recently expanded their codeshare partnership to offer more destinations from Moscow, including Omsk and Volgograd. The Serbian carrier also codeshares on its partner’s flights from the Russian capital to Sochi, Kazan, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Rostov and Novosibirsk. It comes as the Serbian carrier considers potentially ordering Russian-made aircraft for its fleet renewal.
Commenting on its Russia operations, Air Serbia previously said, “These services enhance the flow of trade and strengthen the long-held and friendly bilateral relations between Serbia and Russia. Our flights have also been carefully scheduled to offer business and leisure guests from Russia seamless connectivity over our Belgrade hub to key destinations in the Balkans and Southern Europe, where we have an extensive network of flights”. The airline saw its passenger numbers decrease 3.4% on the Russian market in 2018 when compared to the year before at the hands of decreased capacity and increased competition. However, the carrier is expected to improve its results this year with the addition of new flights.
Russia continues to be one of Belgrade Airport's biggest markets. The two countries maintain visa free travel for each other’s nationals. A total of 42.888 Russian tourists visited Serbia during the January – August period, which is up 24.9% on last year. Recently, the Mayor of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi initiated the introduction of flights to Belgrade. The Serbian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications, Rasim Ljajić, said, "This initiative has been met with great understanding and can be used to increase people-to-people exchange between our two countries. Sochi is an important destination for us. I have held talks with the Mayor of Sochi and we also discussed what Serbia has to offer to Russian travellers. However, the prerequisite is for nonstop flights to be launched between our two cities. I believe this initiative is a real turning point". Russian carrier iFly Airlines recently received permits from the country's federal aviation authority Rosaviatsia to launch flights from Sochi to Belgrade. The company filed an application to operate up to four weekly services from the Black Sea resort city, however, it is yet to schedule any flights.

Comments
IST 35x
BEG 21x
BUD 21x
ATH 14x
OTP 14x
SOF 10x
LJU 7x
ZAG 7x
TIV 7x
SKG 4x
Mind you some destinations like BUD, ZAG or OTP are served by the SSJ on some flights.
Belgrade is a fantastic tourist destination and Russians seem to be falling in love with it.
It is lack of proper marketing that makes people wanting to spent their summer holidays in Greece. Spain, Italy, Cyprus instead of Sochi Russia.
If everyone followed your logic we would never get thousands of Turks, Chinese or Russians visiting Serbia. Tourism industry is fluid and trends change every year. All boils down to who promotes itself the most. No Chinese visited Serbia a few years ago while 200.000 will visit this year.
1-12 80k? ma hajde. bice 55-65k
ODS is definitely missing.
The same applies for LWO and OZH...
- Russians living in Serbia (sizable number considering number of Russian companies operating in Serbia)
- Serbs living in Russia (sizable number)
- Russian tourists (not a huge number all things considering - expensive tickets have something to do with it)
- Russian transfer passengers heading to Montenegro, Macedonia, Croatia (handled by Air Serbia)
- Asian transfer passengers (handled by Aeroflot)
- Serbian construction workers in Russia (considerable number)
Also don't forget that SU also brings Balkan passengers to JU since they have a code-share.
Turks love to travel to Belgrade and they dont need visa .
TK could easily go triple daily and Pegasus and KK both double daily .
And that is Istanbul only, Ankara,Izmir and Trabzon would also be attractive for Turkish visitors .
People there are middle class and modern too .
The air travel restriction arrangement is an absolute disaster and will set back Belgrade airport in relation to their competitors .
The only reason the Turkish parliament ratified it seems to be that they dont care about the needs of their population .
No need for transfer in Belgrade when from every village in Europe and the Balkans you can fly directly to Istanbul.
On the other hand Turkish tourists from secondary cities all over Turkey have no other option than to transfer in Istanbul to get to Serbia.
This is why all these Turkish airlines dominate the Istanbul-Serbia market. It is just logical.
But I have read many times on this blog that it is often cheaper to fly via transfer hub than direct flight. i.e. BEY-BEG-CDG, or XXX-BEG-JFK, or many others not just via BEG.
I think Turkey, Poland, WAW, and maybe KRK, and MUC are worth fighting for for AS, as well as more destinations in Russia and Ukraine.
Second JU has more destinations in the Balkans than just Croatia.
I work for TIV.