Air Serbia is increasing operations to a number of destinations in the coming period as countries begin lifting entry requirements for Serbian citizens. The airline is boosting flights to Switzerland, Cyprus, Turkey and the United States, with frequencies in some cases outstripping pre-pandemic levels. Services to Ljubljana are also likely to grow in the coming weeks after the Slovenian government placed Serbia on its green list today, lifting all entry requirements. Air Serbia will be adding extra frequencies between Belgrade and Zurich for a total of nineteen per week, equaling the number of rotations to those operated last summer. Similarly, its competitor, Swiss, is also increasing its frequencies on the route to twelve per week.
Just days after the Cypriot government lifted entry requirements for Serbian citizens, Air Serbia is doubling its operations to Larnaca to four per week. In response, Wizz Air has brought forward the resumption of its flights between Belgrade and the Cypriot city, which will now be restored on October 15 rather than October 28. Last week, the Serbian carrier increased its frequencies to Istanbul from five to seven weekly, outstripping pre-pandemic levels, and will maintain five weekly flights to New York in October, up from two per week the same month last year. The airline recently announced it would also extend charter flights to Turkey into October and to Egypt throughout November due to strong demand.
Air Serbia has previously said that its recovery will largely depend on ongoing entry restrictions and requirements for Serbian nationals. “The challenge for us at the moment are the closed borders and travel restrictions in our main markets in Western Europe, which greatly restricts the movement of people, and so our flights, too”, the carrier’s Head of Trade and Corporate Sales, Boško Rupić, said. Borders to most European Union member states are currently closed to most Serbian citizens, with the block to discuss the possibility of reopening them at a meeting this week. However, some EU member states have eased or removed all travel restrictions over the past month, including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Italy.
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Morocco, Tenerife/Fuerteventura, Jordan, Ras ElKheimah. Those 319s are fit for the job.
The future is all about charters now.
Many destinations in Northern Africa and Israel/Jordan are especially attractive because they dont have winters as we know it .
Egypt temperatures in winter for example are more suited for tourism than summer .
August for example can be 50° while January has "only" 30°Celsius ...
If there are offers from december to march, demand will follow automatically .
Serbia will be one of those countries whose travel bans get lifted last .
Any insider information or just speculation?
I will remind you that on the beginning of July Serbia was not among the other countries which were on red EU list until we saw the consequencies of football matches and elections.
This info I found says it's still not completely free but only for certain cases
https://ambbelgrado.esteri.it/ambasciata_belgrado/sr/ambasciata/news/dall-ambasciata/2020/09/cambia-la-disciplina-degli-ingressi.html
They will have to extend charter season into winter if they want to make it .
Having said that, I'm surprised that JU's only 2 flights to London are scheduled on same days as the only 2 weekly flights to London by Wizz.
https://www.exyuaviation.com/2020/08/air-serbia-registers-95-million-profit.html
Austrian Airlines will not just decide to die because it feels it is about to rain. Vienna is way too important city for Lufthansa Group, so it will protect that market in one way or another, with one brand or another.
Air Serbia will remain squeezed in between LH Group and Turkish Airlines in the years to come (Both LH&Co and TK are heavily supported by their home countries, and post-covid times will allow them to continue to do so). EU will complain a lot less on government funding in the months ahead. Even Aeroflot was aggressive in these markets. Serbia will simply have to match it, with funds, management, politics, with whatever weapon they have. Air Serbia is doing okay, they jump in wherever they can, react quickly and their pricing seems reasonable. We will see if this trend will continue.