Air Serbia has transported another 40.000 doses of the coronavirus Covid-19 vaccine. The airline operated a special overnight cargo-only charter flight from Moscow with its Airbus A319 aircraft to deliver the vaccines, which arrived in Belgrade this morning. It comes after it transported a further million doses from Beijing two weeks ago with its A330-200 jet, which has enabled the country to begin mass immunisation. As a result, it currently has one the highest vaccination rates both in Europe and the world. Air Serbia is the only national carrier in the region to have been involved in the transport of vaccines.
Good job JU! They have really taken a very proactive role in this pandemic. Better than to park planes on the ground.
ReplyDeleteBtw I remember people wrote on here that no airline in ex-YU is certified to carry pharma goods. How come JU is doing it now?
In meantime it got certification obviusly.
DeleteYou don't have to be certified. Certification is not a licence to carry pharma, it is a confirmation for the client of an airline that processes have been independently verified by the issuer of the certificate.
DeleteLove it.
DeleteDid they fly to SVO?
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteAnyone know the reg of the plane? Can't see in the pics
ReplyDeleteYU-APD
DeleteI really have to say that I like JU's livery. Looks gorgeous in that morning light.
ReplyDeleteMorning dark.
DeleteSo far Pfizer, Sinopharm and Sputnik. Much more Pfizer arriving in February with possible 800k Astra delivery. Pretty good.
ReplyDeleteAstra Zeneca was confirmed, it's coming from Poland.
Deleteand then some geniuses come and say that a country doesn't need a national carrier...
ReplyDeleteA question: do you think that no Russian carrier would be able/willing to do this transport?
DeleteThey would be able, but the cost would be greater plus money would be leaving Serbia, this way money stays in, AS gets employed, makes money, and everyone is happy. Simple economics ese.
DeleteWe don't know whether the cost would be greater. I don't think that anybody disclosed how much JU got paid for the flight and we don't know how much would a Russian carrier charge for this. Not that I need to know, but we cannot tell.
DeleteI read somewhere that a B747 cargo flight from China to Europe cost €450.000. I am sure bringing goods on JU was much less than that.
DeleteDon't want to disappoint you, but I expect countries that have national carriers pay them for the flights like this during covid in the very top range of what is currently market remuneration.
DeleteThere is a lot of fuss, if as a government you want to provide a subsidy to your airline and a flight chartered by the government is always a good and easy occasion to inject some money into your national carrier in difficult times.
And I am sure it does not apply only to Serbia.
Anon 13:55
DeleteEven if the price is the same, one cannot claim that it makes more economical sense to hire a foreign company to do a job which can be done by domestic gov owned company.
I fully support this, and Im proud of our national carrier, but could they be transported on scheduled flight JU650 this morning? I mean, was it necessary to send empty plane few hours before scheduled flight? The only reason could be JU651 was fully loaded with cargo?
ReplyDeleteThere is very little air cargo from SVO to BEG in general on JU flights, just sporadic and occasional.
DeleteJU had an occasion to do one more chartered flight that they got money for. As simple as that. In todays world with limited demand this is something.
DeleteBecause flight tomorrow morning is almost full and I suppose there are a lot of bags.
DeleteSo you think two more big bags would not find their place? Planes can carry belly cargo and full pax load at the same time.
DeleteDude, it's an A319, not an Antonov.
DeleteDude, we are not talking about 10 year production of vaccine, but about two big bags.
DeleteWhere you saw two big bags?
DeleteIt's full of pallets.
On which photo do you see more than 2 boxes?
DeleteGoogle it and you will see how many bags were there when for example Argentina received 300.000 doses. With 40.000 doses it would actually fit into one box, but dose 1 and dose 2 of Sputnik V are different.
it was 6 EUR pallets and 2 boxes
Delete