Air Serbia has removed an additional eleven routes from its network for the upcoming summer season, which begins on March 28, in comparison to the pre-pandemic summer of 2019. The latest revision of its timetable indicates that services from Belgrade to Barcelona, Beirut, Cairo, Kiev, Krasnodar, Madrid, Malta, Nice, Pula, Venice and Zadar will not be going ahead this summer. Their suspension has now been extended until the start of the 2021/2022 winter season, which begins on October 31, while seasonal routes such as Nice, Pula, Malta and Zadar are not expected to return until 2022.
Unlike the summer of 2019, the airline will be serving two new destinations - Oslo and Geneva. Out of the suspended routes, Barcelona, Kiev and Malta will be covered by other airlines flying from Belgrade. The Serbian carrier had previously indicated that flights to Helsinki and Rijeka, which were run two years ago, have been terminated. Based on the existing schedule, which is subject to change as markets reopen and close due to the coronavirus pandemic, Air Serbia plans to operate 10.770 scheduled flights out of Belgrade this summer (both directions included, without charters). Out of those, services to Podgorica will be most frequent, followed closely by Tivat, Zurich, Vienna, Paris and Tirana.
At this point, Air Serbia has a total of 1.245.208 seats up for sale to and from its main hub for the upcoming summer season. Following changes to its fleet structure with the recent retirement of the Boeing 737-300 jets, the Serbian carrier will utilise the Airbus A320-familly aircraft on 60.5% of its flights. It is followed by the ATR72 which will be deployed on 37.3% of its Belgrade services and the A330-200 on 2.2% of all flights. From Niš, the carrier plans to maintain operations to Hahn, Nuremberg, Hanover, Salzburg and Tivat this summer, while operations from Kraljevo to Vienna are scheduled to resume on June 11.
Due to the evolving global health situation and Air Serbia’s quick response to changing market conditions, modifications to the upcoming summer schedule are certain to occur.
Expected
ReplyDeleteShame. Hopefully the situation improves and some of those routes will be reinstated earlier than planned.
ReplyDeleteI guess for all BEG flights it is just a temporary suspension of one year, whereas everywhere else it is an indefinite cancellation like for example EK to ZAG. Weired.
DeleteWell, facts are facts.
DeleteJU will do everything to restore their network.
DeleteWhat do you mean by everything? They are not going to resort to any mischievous methods.
DeleteWhen the market returns they will then analyse the situation and make a decision.
I'm surprised they plan to resume Kraljevo after all
ReplyDeleteI am not, loads to Vienna were really good in the past.
DeleteAnd the INI low cost experiment continues.
DeleteWhy experiment?
DeleteThese are PSO routes.
Niš and Kraljevo are subsidised, so they shouldn't be allowed to be cancelled
DeleteIn that case they shouldn’t receive the full amount of subsidies, but I’m sure they do.
DeleteThe same like OU should not have received PSO money for flights they did not operate in spring last year
DeleteТhat is a lot of routes to be axed in summer. I hope they will survive.
ReplyDeleteThey will be just fine.
DeleteTaking in consideration that Serbian citizens can't enter EU this is more than acceptable.
DeleteCairo, Krasnodar are not necessarily in the EU.
DeleteLike you've been told, Krasnodar is closed for all non-CIS flights. No one knows when it will reopen for non-CIS flights. When it reopens they will schedule the flights.
DeleteAt the moment no airline is allowed to operate any route between Russia and Serbia other than Moscow.
DeleteAt the moment but the article is on the summer schedule.
DeleteThere is no change planned for the summer at this point so that'w why they moved it to winter. If it reopens, they will reopen flights.
DeleteWhy am I not surprised about Kiev. I mean it is being operated by Widrose and soon SkyUp (with 737-800)
ReplyDeleteYep, didn't see them surviving against Windrose and SkyUp.
DeleteActually KRR is suspended for now because the airport is closed for non-CIS destinations. Once it opens it will be resumed.
ReplyDeleteHope so but Russia has been very slow to reopen for foreign airlines.
DeleteI'm surprised about Cairo. Egypt is open to Serbian citizens
ReplyDeleteIt's a long route. By that I mean aircraft is deployed for a long time on the route. They probably realised it would make too much financial losses.
DeleteMost Serbian citizens don't go to Cairo, they go to the coast.
DeleteI know but it's a shame :( with just a negative PCR test needed for Serbs, and Egypt lifting all airport fees, why don't they give it a try? Tour operators could make packages there. If they could shift and start making packages to Pakistan why not Cairo.
DeleteAirport fees are suspended only for tourist airports, not CAI.
DeleteAirport fees are lifted only for coastal airports, not for Cairo.
DeleteOk, my bad. I thought it included Cairo too.
DeletePity Beirut didn't work out. It though it would be good for transfers.
ReplyDeleteWishing those planned destinations for 2020 would be launched :( would be nice to have flights to places like Amman or even Chisinau. Would be interesting to visit for a weekend.
ReplyDeleteA lot regarding next summer will depend on travel restrictions.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be a second very tough summer. I fear more financial aid will be needed.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI guess now we know why foreign airlines are rushing to launch BEG, they smell blood. Reminds me of how airlines rushed to launch LJU just before JP.......
ReplyDeleteYour comment is nonsense two fold. Primarily because absolutely no one rushed to Ljubljana before JP went bankrupt, literally no one. And don't worry, although you might want to wish for Air Serbia to go bankrupt it won't. They have removed routes which make no sense for them, primarily since Serbian citizens still can't enter the EU. Were that to change, so will the route network. Like the article says, they have been quick to respond to changing market conditions. After all, they are the only airline in ex-Yu to have actually introduced new routes during this crisis. Thankfully, their route network is quite large so they will still have over 50 routes.
Delete@9.20 what would you say about Lufthansa? They removed 20 routes from Munich for this summer and that's only short haul routes.
DeleteDo you know what routes they cut from MUC?
DeleteMunich – Biarritz
DeleteMunich – Edinburgh
Munich – Genoa
Munich – Katowice
Munich – Ljubljana
Munich – Lviv
Munich – Moscow Domodedovo
Munich – Nantes
Munich – Newcastle
Munich – Nuremberg
Munich – Paris Orly
Munich – Rostock
Munich – Rimini
Munich – Rzeszow
Munich – St. Petersburg
Munich – Sarajevo
Munich – Tallinn
Munich – Trieste
Munich – Zagreb
Wow! Were those daily flights?
DeleteAir Serbia acts with agility and flexibility to quickly adapt to changing conditions. That agility is made possible thanks to streamlined narrowbody fleet of 12 Airbus jets and 5 ATRs. On the other hand, having a single A330 robs Air Serbia from ability to pivot in longhaul space with the same agility as in the narrowbody network. Now is the time to use low lease rates to expand widebody fleet and announce second long haul destination.
ReplyDeleteWow! I didn't see this coming.
ReplyDeleteReally?
DeleteI really wonder how you didn't see this coming? We are in a middle of global pandemic where absolutely all airlines have slashed their route networks.
DeleteSo TLV once again is the only Middle Eastern destination left.
ReplyDeleteThey should consider Ohrid again for the summer season since many countries will still remain closed I think for the upcoming summer season
ReplyDeleteyou are right. maybe they will
Deleteall these bus tours there should be enough people to fill an ATR
DeleteI would add OMO to that as well. Alot of Serbian tourists went to Neum last year.
DeleteYou still have to get from Mostar to Neum, which is at least a two hour autobus ride.
DeleteAs last year brought what it brought it is logical that a number of routes will be cut. Barcelona route was highly dependent on tourists going to the Spanish coast. That is not going to be an option this year.
ReplyDeleteHad they kept all route people here would be writing how they are loosing monet and flying for prestige.
ReplyDeleteHEL and CAI were never profitable destinations. The network is likely to stagnate until 2022. This year will be quite tough for aviation.
DeleteIs the fleet smaller than it was in 2019?
ReplyDeleteYes, it's smaller by 4 aircraft compared to summer 2019 - 3 B737s and 1 CRJ900 that was wetleased. The 1 ATR and 1 A320 that were removed from the fleet last year have been replaced by 2 A319s that arrived in 2020.
DeleteAnyone care to guess what are JU's most profitable routes?
ReplyDeleteHeathrow was one of their most profitable routes. Don't know the situation now.
DeleteZurich?
DeleteVienna?
DeleteI would actually assume short routes with high passenger numbers and relatively expensive tickets would be most profitable. So routes like Podgorica and Tivat.
DeleteRegional (Balkan) fares ex BEG are outrageously expensive. It wouldnt surprise me for them being amongst the more profitable.
DeleteEspecially for TIA.
DeleteBut the regional routes are expensive because the taxes in these countries are way off. I mean the actual ticket between TGD-BEG is like 50 euros. The rest are taxes which makes it over 100 euros.
DeleteKind of. Understandable for airports such as SJJ and ZAG, not so much for SKP, TIA and LJU for example with decent LCC presence.
DeleteSince when does LJU have a decent LCC presence?
Delete@05,51
DeletePoint I was putting forward that there is some presence of LCC. Therefore airport taxes shouldnt be that bad.
Networks for many airlines will be set back by years.
ReplyDeleteLook at LH in Munich. Network has been decimated.
DeleteThey culled a lot of routes out of Frankfurt too, not just Munich.
Delete'Culled' hahahah .... i love the lingo.
Deletealmost every airline in the world is shrinking their networks.
ReplyDeleteBad news for JU
ReplyDeleteActually it ensures that they survive.
DeleteThe only things that ensures ASL survives is the continuous subsidies from the Government.
DeleteI guess the same case is with Lufthansa which got billions.
DeleteLufthansa didn't need continuous life support from the government prior the Covid crisis.
DeleteYou are right. It only needed billions when corona hit.
DeleteBut we know some airlines in EU surronding that could not have survived even before pandemic without Goverment's help.
DeleteLufthansa has a lot of protectionism. That's why airlines like EK or QR are restricted.
DeleteRestricted in what way?
DeleteIn the amount of flights they can offer to Germany.
DeleteTrue, but they operate a lot more services to Germany than Lufthansa does to Qatar and UAE, so the balance is still very much in their favour.
Deletethis is actually good news. It means they are proactive!
ReplyDeleteif it was other airports the comments would be : real market situation. demand is deminishing
DeleteIn this case, the article is not about an airport (I guess you are referring to BEG), but regarding an airline. No one is saying JU not conducting flights is good for BEG. After all, BEG earns fixed fees just by having aircraft departing, irregardless of pax numbers. So they would definitely like JU to conduct flights.
DeleteBetter for an airline to cut routes in order to survive tough times, than to be spread to thin, with very low LF and yields.
DeleteBTW, 'Irregardless' means the same thing as “regardless.” Yes, it's a word. But major dictionaries label it nonstandard.
I do not understand all this pessimism within the above comments. With vaccination speeding-up & many countries going for no restrictions at all for passengers holding a so-called vaccine passport, I very quite sure summer 2021 will be much better than last year. Truly global players such as Turkish Airlines and Emirates (to name a few) do have a much bigger network at this stage when compared to last year. Clearly, people are willing to travel and getting extremely tired of all these (very arguable) restrictions: https://www.ft.com/content/055ba761-3610-4d61-97a3-4a3719af066d.
ReplyDeleteWell didn't Air Serbia's CCO say they plan to operate around 45% of pre pandemic traffic this summer. These suspensions make sense.
ReplyDeleteIt was info for Q2, not for whole summer
DeleteToday’s handful of bitter pills for fans.
ReplyDeleteIf you would only know what means being realistic...
DeleteHaters can't tell what's good and what's bad for Air Serbia. See, bitter pill for fans of LCCs for example is when major LCCs had a period when number of passengers dropped by 70-80%. That's a bitter pill.
DeleteOn the other hand, Air Serbia network of about 50 official destinations has dropped by only 11 destinations. Do the math if you are able (seriously doubt it) and compare to other airlines during Covid and you'll see it's actually good news for Air Serbia. They also added two new destinations during the crisis.
They lowered the costs, reduced workforce, retired old jets, getting soon a cheaper, newer A330 with 17% more business class seats... it's a very bitter pill for Air Serbia haters indeed.
So during Covid they; droped only 11 destinations, which is good.
DeleteAnd they also added two new destinations, which is good.
So all good at AS.
Now compare how much money JU got from GoS in 2020 and how much did the LCCs operating in Serbia, and you will see why some airlines can afford to operate with a huge loss and others can't.
DeleteIf LCC like Wizz can't afford to operate with a huge loss, no one is preventing them from moving out to the next largest airport in the exyu.
DeleteAs LCCs are not registered in Serbia, not headquartered in Serbia, not having pilot training centers in Serbia, never asking Government what next destination from BEG they should serve, why would they expect to get a single cent in subsidy from that Government?
Ideally it should be a free market without any state aid.
DeleteWould be interesting to see how the balance would look then.
"never asking Government what next destination from BEG they should serve"
This was a joke, right?
Oh you want government subsidy money with no strings attached, so you can even use them to fund flights directly competing with government majority-owned airline? That's really funny, what a talent!
DeleteLCCs do not fly/exist in the free market without subsidies, discounts, passengers fees close to zero, tenders crafted for them etc. See SKP & TZL as example. See ZAG for the other extreme of that same example.
Anyway today's news is about Air Serbia, not LCCs.
Capitalism is great until it runs into trouble, then it asks Socialism for help.
DeleteHow much is Germany paying FR at FRA? Or UK to EZY at LGW?
DeleteHave no idea. If you know please share.
DeleteAnon at 22:31
DeleteTopic is Air Serbia. How disturbed do you have to be to continue pressing on with W6, FR & U2 agenda?
I would have liked them to have kept most of these routes but with lower frequency, so they at least maintain a presence at these airports. But no one asked me. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSome of those destinations just aren't doable now or even this year.
Delete