Three carriers from Russia, including Aeroflot, Rossiya and S7 Airlines, have received approval from the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency - Rosaviatsiya - to launch new flights to Belgrade. It comes as Air Serbia begins to expand its operations in Russia today with the introduction of flights to Rostov-on-Don and the resumption of services to St Petersburg and Krasnodar, while Nordwind Airlines readies to launch its second route to the Serbian capital, from St Petersburg, next week. Furthermore, Russia’s national carrier has started operating all of its Belgrade flights with wide-body Airbus A330-300 aircraft. Aeroflot has now received approval to commence up to seven weekly flights from St Petersburg to Belgrade, while Rossiya Airlines, which is part of the Aeroflot Group, has also been granted approval by Russian authorities for the same route with the same number of frequencies. 

S7 Airlines, which was blocked by the Serbian regulator from introducing services between Moscow and Belgrade last month, has now filed plans to commence up to 24 weekly rotations to the Serbian capital from a range of cities. These include Kazan, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Ufa, Saratov, Perm and Nizhniy Novgorod. All of S7’s permit requests have been filed for up to three services per week. However, all three carriers must now seek and receive approval from the Serbian Civil Aviation Directorate in order to be able to introduce these flights. Furthermore, the airlines themselves can decide against launching any of the routes they initially received approval to launch. 

Russia is one of Belgrade Airport’s biggest markets and despite the coronavirus pandemic has continued to perform well. Demand in recent months has been driven primarily by Russian tour operators selling packages to Serbian mountain resorts. With numerous markets still closed off to Russian travellers, relaxed entry rules into Serbia and visa free travel have made the country a popular choice. “Serbia has never been in such demand before. The most popular destination is the Kopaonik mountain resort, which accounts for about 70% of all sales to Serbia”, tour operator TUI Russia said. Serbian nationals are also permitted entry into Russia.